


The Todd Case

by took_skye



Series: Living For the Night [2]
Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Alternate Universe - Noir, F/M, Gen, POV Alternating, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-11
Updated: 2011-02-11
Packaged: 2017-10-22 15:57:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 35,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/239837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/took_skye/pseuds/took_skye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Dr Spencer Reid arrives in Quaint Cove he gets a job working for Private Investigator Aaron "Hotch" Hotchner on a case involving a missing woman...but in a place where nothing goes to plan, no one can be trusted blindly, and things quickly go from bad to dangerous it'll be a miracle if he survives his first week.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Nightingale's Welcome Me

**Author's Note:**

> This story was first published on Livejournal starting March 11, 2010
> 
> This chapter is in Reid's POV

  
_There's nothing as safe as ignorance — or as dangerous. ~ Nero Wolfe_

***///***

“Welcome to Quaint Cove,” the crazy-eyed landlord says with a sneer as I drop the last of my boxes into the only little rat-hole of an apartment I could afford.

“Thanks,” I tell him but, really, don’t mean it. Landlord Crazy-Eyes reminds me of every bully that got a rush in beating the snot out of me since I stepped onto a playground…in fact the nasty smile on his face tells me he wouldn’t mind doing just that under different circumstances. Guess I’ll have to be sure to pay the rent on time. “Do, uh, do you know where a guy could get a drink ‘round here?”

The madman’s sneer widens some. “Notta guy like you, but the rest of us tend towards _Nightingale’s_.” With that he left. I hear laughter follow his footsteps heading down the stairs, but it only encourages me to remember to avoid the crazy bastard.

After unpacking only the bare essentials I wash up some, slick back my hair a bit, and head out my newest home. I make sure to lock and bolt the door.

***

 _Nightingale's_ is a dingy bar twice the size of my place, which isn’t saying much, but it seems it’ll have to do. I get stares straight off, then I just get ignored as I beeline to the bar, the best way I can see to show I’m not looking for any trouble.

“Whaddya want?” the guy behind the bar asks. For where he works the man seems oddly out of place; he’s older with a smile that expresses warmth more than anyone else I’ve seen since leaving my sick mother back in Vegas.

“Brandy,” I state, nearly falling off my stool when the worn out treads on my Chucks give way and slip. Most those around me snicker and chuckle, but not the bartender, he just waits with his smile as I fix my glasses and try to pretend what just happened didn’t. “Uh…please,” I like to stay polite at all times, Mom raised me right.

“Sure thing.” The older gentleman goes to set the snifter on the bar before me and pour the liquor from a glass that’s dusty outside and, from the looks of it, on the inside too. “So, what’s your name? You new around here?”

Clearly he has time to chat, which I’m not exactly opposed to so answer. “Dr Spencer Reid, they’re Ph.D.s, three of them…but, uh, everyone just calls me Reid. And yeah, I am.”

The man smiles and offers me his hand, “Well, Dr. Reid, it’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Jason Gideon and this is my place.” He’s the first one ever to not ask me if I’m a genius, I guess the credentials speak for themselves with him.

“It’s nice.” I shake his hand, unsure what else to say. “It’s a pleasure to meet you too, Mr. Gideon.”

“Just Gideon, please. You just get into town, huh?” the man giving his face a scratch that makes me wanna do the same, but I hold back. “It for a job or are you just incredibly unfortunate?” His smile increases a little, though I’m not getting the joke.

Unable to control it anymore I scratch my chin where stubble threatens to become a beard one day, “As of now I’ve been in town about 9 hours, 52 minutes, and,” I stop to look at my watch, “36 seconds.” I look back up. “And I thought I had a job, new boss was supposed to pick me up at the train, but he didn’t show so I guess I don’t.”

“What about a place to stay, you have one of those?”

“Yes,” I tell him, relieved to say I’m not completely inept. “Place right down the street.”

“ _The Bright Cliffs_?” The elder bartender names the building and I nod while sipping from my snifter. He frowns. “You let me know if you need any help with Frank, the landlord, he can be a bit erratic.”

“Erratic?”

“Crazy.”

I nod my comprehension. “Well he’ll be more so when he finds out I don’t have a way to pay rent.”

Gideon holds up a finger and goes to the register to pull something out, I’m hoping for cash, before returning with a business card. “You give this number a call. The woman there will give you a job.”

I take the care and read it over:

 _Aaron “Hotch” Hotchner, P.I._

“A P.I.? Why would some woman give me a job for some private dick?” As far as I can tell good luck wasn’t ever in the cards for me (I should know, I can count ‘em) and, despite its name, Quaint Cove wasn’t filled with giving people.

“The girl, Garcia, always tells me her boss needs a hand and you’re a hand.” The guy smiles and I can’t help comparing his to Frank the Landlord’s; Gideon’s is more genuine and lacked malice. “Can’t hurt right?”

“Not sure I’m P.I. material." Never even considered law enforcement before, of course I never considered anything what with caring for my mom and all.

“I bet you are, Dr.”

The man’s clearly more sure than I am so I figure, why not, can’t hurt to give it a shot. Maybe Gideon's right. “Well, uh, like you said, can’t hurt to try,” I acknowledge before finishing off my brandy. “Can I just ask you something, Gideon?”

“Shoot.”

“Why are you doing this?”

The man seems to consider the question seriously for a long time before answering. “Because I like to encourage light wherever I find it in this hell-hole of a town and, right now, that’s you.”

“So uh, whatta I owe ya?”

“Not a thing,” Gideon answers and I believe him. “Just don’t let this town take you down with it, got me?”

“Sure.” I go to leave money for the drink, Gideon refuses it, tells me the first round’s on him, and so I leave it alone with a small smile. There’s no cause to make a fuss over paying for a drink I can barely afford when the owner of the bar says my money’s no good to him. I take the walk back to the rank building where my new living space is and feel luck forming walls around me as I successfully avoid Frank and return to an unbroken-into apartment with a working phone. I dial. “Hello, is this the number to Aaron Hotchner’s P.I. services?”

“Sure is. You gotta problem, we got the solution,” a chipper female voice replies.

“Yeah, uh…My, uh, my name’s Dr. Spencer Reid, Jason Gideon gave me this number and said you were looking to hire.”

“Doctor?”

“Yeah, Ph.D’s,” I tell her, “three of them.”

“Well aren’t you the brainy one?” she giggles a little. “How about you come down and we’ll have a look at ya? Maybe a chat?”

“Sure.” I tell her before listening to her give addresses and direction. I don’t need to write any of it down, I have an excellent memory and already overlooked the city map while on the train. When I’m done pretending to write it all done I tell her thanks, goodbye, and hang up. Soon enough I’m out the door again. I’ve been a citizen of Quaint Cove 11 hours, 16 minutes, and 3 seconds.

***///***

 _"Turn the right corner in Sin City and you can find anything" ~ The Salesman, _Sin City__


	2. On Dangerous Ground

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is in Hotch's POV

  
_"The noir hero is a knight in blood caked armor. He's dirty and he does his best to deny the fact that he's a hero the whole time." ~ Frank Miller_

***///***

I awake in an empty bed with a hangover that might stop a normal man in his tracks…but for me it’s just another day of the week, a day I can't actually remember at the moment. Maybe I’ll ask Garcia when I get in, she’s always good about reminding me about things like that. I grab my slacks off the floor and slip them on as I get out of the bed. There’s water running out of rusted shower pipes that I hear even with the bathroom being all the way down the hall. Great, she’s going to use all the water…no shower for me this morning. I slip my watch with its frayed band onto my left wrist after the rest of me is dressed. It’s a miracle the thing still works; I got it ages ago as a parting gift from my duties as one Quaint Cove’s finest. They let me take the fall on a botched case and all I got was this piece-of-shit watch, that’s loyalty for you these days.

Thoughts of slipping out the apartment cross my mind repeatedly, not like it’ll be the first time with her, before I hear the tyke give a yell for its mother. Damn it! I told her I didn’t want the kid around while I was a million times, you’d think she’d get it through her skull one of these times. It’s not that I hate kids or anything, I’ve never really paid them enough mind to feel strongly either way, but I don’t want this kid assuming I’m “New Daddy” or some crap. That and, when I come over, it isn't exactly with the aim of doing anything close to kid-friendly and it's just not right having a boy in the house with all that. I don’t bother to knock when I reach the bathroom. “Kid’s calling for you.”

“Could you get him?”

“That’s not my job,” I tell her.

She gives a sound of pure annoyance before pulling back the side of the curtain to look at me. “Make it your job, I’m taking a shower.”

“Goddamn it, Elle,” I’m already on the edge of exploding at the mere fact the kid’s in the apartment, I didn’t have the patience for her attitude this early in the morning. “Take care of your fuckin’ kid!”

“Oh go to hell, Hotchner! You try being a single parent!” Voice of an angel, mouth of a sailor, that's Elle. She always had the fighter’s spirit, even when in the wrong or when it might get her slapped around. It's part of the reason I like her so damned much. It's also why I hate her.

Part of me wants to keep the fight going, to get her so pissed off and worked up we both end up on the bathroom floor sweaty, bloody, and spent all over again, but I bite my tongue. Call me uptight or old-fashioned but I won’t do that sort of thing with a kid in the apartment. So, instead, I simply glare and wait for her attitude to change.

It does soon enough; she makes doe-eyes and smiles softly, sweetly, “If you just get him up and to the table I’ll make us all breakfast, okay? Is that a deal?”

I stare at her a moment longer before realizing that's the best I'm going to get this morning and turn on my heel to leave. The moment the door shuts I hear her singing – with all the singing she does at the clubs you’d think she’d want a break, but apparently not. Soon I’m far enough down the hall that I can’t hear her anymore and the calls of the kid get louder. I open the door to a small, dirty, blonde boy sitting in his bed, now mute, looking up at me. I’m not very good with kids. “You okay?” I ask the first question that occurs to me.

The small boy nods a bit. “Where’s Mommy?”

“Shower,” I answer as I begin to consider why in the world a fully-grown man suddenly at the boy’s doorway doesn’t make him nervous or even curious. “I’m Aaron.”

“Jack!” the boy gives his name happily.

“Nice to meet you.” Damn it all if I don’t feel my lips curling up in a smile. I didn’t even think I could do that anymore, at least not genuinely. As quickly as I feel it I force it away and into a frown; I don’t want to encourage the boy, don’t want him to think this is the beginning of some kind of connection. Don’t want to get myself thinking it’s a connection either even if that’s what I feel when I look into his big brown eyes. “Come on, let’s head to the kitchen, your mom’ll make you breakfast when she’s out of the shower.”

The tyke nearly leaps out of the bed and grabs my hand, “Really?”

For a split second I give the boy’s hand a squeeze, but then I pull my hand away completely. I can’t have this kid getting attached to me, I’m not someone that any innocent should be hooking their star to. “Yeah, really,” I tell little Jack as he follows fast on my heels out of the room and towards the kitchen. Thank god Elle’s out of the shower and starting breakfast by the time we reach the living area. For a moment I watch the cowboy pajama-clad boy set himself up excitedly for food at the tiny table by the door and then I turn to watch Elle. She’s humming in the small kitchen with still damp hair darkening the back of her golden robe. “I gotta go,” I announce as soon as the urge hits me to bolt. It’s just too homey, too much, and my mind screams that I don’t belong, or deserve to belong, with mother and child. I head to grab my coat off the couch.

“I just started the eggs,” Elle sighs, exacerbated.

“Give ‘em to the kid,” I reply as I slide the tan trench coat over my suit. “Looks like he could use the extra food.”

Elle turns to give a less than pleased look but then seems to let it go. “Jack, say goodbye to Mr. Hotchner.”

“Bye!” the boy says before smiling as he looks up at me. “You look like Dick Tracy.”

My smile almost returns as I enjoy the irony of being given a compliment by some four year old when I can barely get one from anyone else. “I don’t have a hat though,” I point out.

“No, but ya still look like him!” Jack insists.

“Take care, kiddo, and be good for your mom,” I tell him as I rustle his hair a touch and then head out with a goodbye to Elle who, for some reason, has decided to smile at me despite seeming pissed not moments before.

***

“Hey there, boss man!” Garcia greets me in a chipper voice as she gets up and heads to pour me some coffee almost before I have both feet in the room. To this day I’ve yet to find anyone quite like my secretary…perpetually happy, always optimistic, forever patient, and without the jadedness that seems to run through the veins of this city. I don’t know how she stays as bright as the clothing she wears and, I’m guessing, I never really will.

“Morning Garcia,” I hang up my coat as we talk. “Anything for me?”

The woman smiles even more. “Oh, you’ll be completely thrilled with me, Hotch! I got Gideon to find you an assistant!”

Funny, I never told her I wanted one. Still Garcia’s one of those people that it’s almost impossible to be angry with. “You’re my assistant,” I tell her with a teasing smile for which I get a playful slap on the arm as she hands me the mug full of coffee.

“I mean for your work outside the office,” Garcia clarifies before adding, “I just hate the thought of you out there working cases alone. It isn’t safe.”

“Says the secretary taking the bus to and from the office to the ex-cop who drives everywhere.”

Garcia gives a small laugh. “I don’t take the bus to the same places you drive to for work. Now get in there and meet your new partner in crime fighting,” she orders with a playful push in the direction of my inner office that I allow to propel me forward a few steps before taking the rest on my own.

Like I said, Garcia's one of those types that it's almost impossible to be cross with…but she's really pushing it with this so-called assistant. Kid can't be more than 30, if even that, and looks like a twig in glasses and Chucks. “Name,” I request, still holding the office door open so, when I boot him out, I don’t have to open it again.

“Dr. Spencer Reid but, uh, everyone just calls me Reid,” the scrawny kid says as he goes to stand and offer his hand to me.

I don’t take it, I let my eyes narrow instead. “Doctor?”

“Ph.D.s, three of them,” he pulls his hand back and answers so quickly I know he’s been asked this all a million times.

“In what?”

“Engineering, Chemistry, and Mathematics.”

“And you want to go into the P.I. business?”

The question seems to stump him a moment, but he does answer, “I want a job.” At least he’s honest. “I also have BAs in Psychology and Sociology, an IQ on 187, an eidetic memory, and can read 20,000 words per minute. I, um…I really think I can be an asset to you here.”

I’m impressed, but don’t let it show. Right now it’s more important I ensure this kid can do the job than give him praise. “Can you use a gun?”

“Excuse me?” The question pretty clearly throws him…not a good sign.

“Can you fire a gun?” I clarify a little as my patience thins.

“In theory.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“Well, uh, I don’t see why I wouldn’t be able to but I can’t say for sure,” he explains, his words running together a bit in what I can tell is nerves before the confession comes. “I’ve never used one.”

My eyes nearly roll, but years of practice keep them set on the young man without any indication as to how I feel. “My job is serious work. It’s high risk, long hours, and frequently low reward. I don’t have the time or desire to baby-sit someone who, in all likelihood, will become a liability.” And I certainly don’t need another innocent person’s death on my conscience either. “You’re more likely to get hurt than anything so maybe it would be better if you looked for a job somewhere else.” I don't make it a suggestion, I make it a declaration.

The stick of a man doesn’t give any indication he’s even heard me as he stands in front of my desk. Finally he speaks. “According to the latest statistics crime here has been steadily increasing, now tripling the nation’s average in violent crimes and, specifically, leading the nation in the number of murders with almost 700 to date this year so far. Your police force is known for its corruption, as are your politicians, and the two prisons you have are already overflowing. With all do respect, Mr. Hotchner, I know what I’m getting into asking for this job.”

Again I'm impressed, but again I don't show it. “Garcia says Gideon recommended you.”

“Well he told me about the job, sir, yes.”

I don’t trust a lot of people, but Gideon I have since he was my captain on the force. Damn near killed me when he was forced into early retirement by the corrupt higher-ups; the beginning of the end of this city in my opinion. The guy always has a way of seeing the potential in people even when no one else could and, apparently, he sees potential in this kid. I need to respect that…even if I suspect letting this guy work with me could end in disaster. “Fine, next case you join me on and we’ll see how it goes,” I concede, though not completely. “I’m not promising anything other than that though.”

“I understand.”

“And learn to use a gun.”

“Okay.”

“When we get a case I’ll have Garcia call you.” I tell him, hoping to god it’s well after he learns how to fire a weapon, as I lead him out of my office and into the main area where Garcia sits happily, but no longer alone.

“Oh, good, I was just about to call for you,” Garcia says as she stands and gestures to a new presence in the room. “Hotch, this is Emily Prentiss, our newest client.”

To say the dame's attractive would be an understatement of the greatest kind. Long, dark, tresses match the color of the feminine cut suit, which lacks the customary shirt under its jacket and allows more than glimpses of bare skin. That’s not what first catches my eye though, what first catches my eyes is her lips. They’re a deep and glorious red that spell out the future when they move. “My roommate, Jordan, has been missing for two days. Can you find her?” Those are the words that slip out between the ruby bits of flesh, but I can sense the meaning behind them…trouble.

***///***

 _""They bring justice to a world that gives them no medals, no praise, no reward." ~ Frank Miller_


	3. Safe Passage

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is in Reid's POV

  
_"This life of ours, this is a wonderful life. If you can get through life like this, hey, thats great. But it's very, very unpredictable. There are so many ways you can screw it up." ~ Paul Castellano_

***///***

“So why come to me?” Hotch asks as he drives, speeds, through the streets towards Ms. Prentiss’s place and I sit in the back just praying the man doesn’t stop short and send me flying through the windshield.

“What do you mean?” the woman asks as she relaxes in the passenger seat, cigarette in hand, in a way even I know allows the driver a glimpse under her jacket with the turn of the head…which only serves to impress me at how stubbornly Hotch’s head refuses to move in her general direction.

“Why not the police?”

The woman’s lips curl enough that I can see them as she turns to look at Hotch. “You ever tried going to the police for help, Mr. Hotchner?” her head turns back towards the side window. “Might as well go ask Rossi to silence me now. Take the next right.”

Something about what she says causes Hotch to make the next turn with such aggression I find myself skidding across the backseat into the door. “What the hell?” I blurt out more than a touch agitated.

I’m ignored however as my new boss straightens the car and continues to drive. “What does Rossi have to do with your roommate’s disappearance?”

The Prentiss woman shrugs. “Maybe nothing, maybe everything.”

Her answer seems to just serve in pissing the guy off more and the car’s speedometer rolls it’s way to the right. Now I have to ask. “Who’s Rossi?”

The woman flicks her cigarette out the window then turns her body to face me giving me a view of enough of her skin that I damn near blush as I try to focus on her face, her lips as they move, and not the black lace bra she’s flashing me. “You new in town?”

“Yes, actually.”

She nods as a wry smile forms. “Let’s just say he’s a very powerful businessman in town.”

“He’s a mobster.” I’m not an idiot.

Ms. Prentiss nods. “It’s the next house up,” she addresses Hotch but stays focused on me. “So how long have you been in the city, Reid?”

I go to answer but when I open my mouth the car gives a screech that prevents my answer and causes the smell of burnt rubber to fill the immediate area as the car skids to a halt. As Ms. Prentiss turns around to sit properly in her seat I lean forward to see what caused Hotch to slam the breaks. …A cop car. “I thought you said you didn’t go to the police?”

“I didn’t,” the woman’s voice comes from the front seat almost blankly.

“Can you think of anyone who might’ve?” Hotch asks through gritted teeth.

The woman shrugs. “Someone at the club we work at, maybe. I have no idea.”

Hotch says nothing, in fact there’s almost no perceptible movement from him at all save for the continual whitening of his knuckles as they grip the wheel and an officer approaches.

The officer knocks on the window and Hotch lowers it without even moving his head until the cop’s near grinning face is at the level we can all see. “Private Investigator Aaron Hotchner,” the man announces as if we all weren’t aware already, “now you wouldn’t be here about the missing girl, would you?”

The question seems rhetorical to me, the officer’s face implying he already knows the answer anyway, but Hotch replies. “I’m just dropping off a woman at her house, Foyet.”

“Officer Foyet,” the policeman corrects with an even bigger smile before setting his oddly cold gaze on me, “And what about Buddy Holly buddy here?” I know better than to answer. “You running a taxi service in your off time, Aaron?”

“Where’s Derek?” Hotch asks, getting Officer Foyet’s attention off me and back onto him.

“You mean Officer Morgan?”

“Your partner.”

“Officer Morgan,” Foyet repeats with a nod before sighing some. “I’m afraid he’s not here at the moment, but I’m not alone if that’s what you’re asking.”

“It wasn’t,” Hotch states.

The tension between them is palpable; in fact it’s thick, seeming to suffocate me in the car. I decide to distract them from one another. “Excuse me, Officer,” the icy eyes of Foyet dart back to me, “did you say there was a missing girl?”

Foyet’s smile becomes a smirk. “Smart boy, aren’t you? Yes, a waitress from The Stallion. Ever been there?”

I shake my head some, intentionally move to push my glasses up the bridge of my nose a little adding the image I know this man has of me…nerd. “I’m new in town, I haven’t really been anywhere.” Foyet snorts out a laugh, but I press on. “So, uh, how, uh…how do you know that, uh, she didn’t just, you know, leave town…the missing girl, I mean.”

This time the cop doesn’t answer right away; instead he eyes me carefully as if trying to look past my eyes right into my brain, searching my thought-processes for a motive behind my continued questioning. “I don’t,” he states, this time without the smile. Clearly I’ve ceased to be a source of amusement for the man and his attention turns to Ms. Prentiss. “And who might you be?”

“I might be on my way home,” she replies, shifting her arms to flash all three of us her bra. Foyet stares freely, I try not to, and Hotch’s eyes I see dart in the rearview mirror just a moment before going back to Foyet.

The cop gives an appreciative laugh. “Aren’t you a pistol?” he chuckles a bit more before smiling. “Care to have a police escort back home, Beautiful?”

“I’m taking her home,” Hotch asserts with a near growl.

Foyet’s smile leaves his face making his eyes all the colder. “See you still have that inflated ego. Wonder if this one will die as a result of it too,” a smirk appeared that instinctually had me moving my seat to the opposite side of the car of the man. “Or maybe fate’ll smile on you, though I doubt it. Good luck.” The wishes sound more like a threat as the cop stands and gives the roof of the car two slaps indicating for us to drive along.

I watch out the window as we pass the cruiser and the other cop, a great big thug of a man, standing outside it. I note the nameplate on his chest: “Perrota”. The tension in the car is still as palpable even with Officer Foyet gone and I wonder if Hotch isn’t going to slam the car into reverse and confront, or even kill, the guy. It seems he won’t as he takes a sharp turn off the street and just keeps driving.

“Do you have any place you can stay?” Hotch speaks suddenly, directing the question to Ms. Prentiss.

“You mean other than my place?”

“Your place isn’t an option anymore,” Hotch states. “Like you said, if the cops know it probably means Rossi knows and he’ll be after you. Now, do you have a place to stay? Somewhere you won’t be found?”

The woman stays quiet. She pulls a cigarette and lighter out of her suit jacket pocket, lights up, taking a long drag before letting the smoke seep out between her lips, and then looks over towards our manically yet still controlled, driver. “No.”

‘We’ll find you one.”

***

Garcia’s got as big a smile as ever when we return to the offices, though the confusion shows through in her eyes. “You’re back early.”

“The cops were already there,” Hotch replies simply as he shrugs out of his coat. “I need you to find Prentiss a safe place to stay.”

“Sure thing,” Garcia nods.

“Make it somewhere close to the offices.”

“No problemo,” Garcia quips before jumping in before Hotch gets a chance to continue. “Speaking of cops, the handsomest detective that ever existed is in your office.”

“I thought I was the handsomest detective that ever existed.” Hotch’s lips barely move, yet I can almost guess that he’d just made a joke. Didn’t even know it was possible for the man.

The secretary laughs some. “Not to me.”

Hotch simply nods and his smile seems to fade back into his straight-laced expression. “Did he say why he’s here?”

“No.”

The answer doesn’t seem to affect Hotch at all. “Okay then. Could you please look up a place for Prentiss to stay,” he then turned to the woman in the black suit, “you should stay out here, help Garcia pick a suitable, safe, place.”

“And work?” the woman asks.

“At the moment they only seem to be staking out your home and, since you avoided giving the police your name, you might be okay returning to work,” I jump in, “but that being said if your work is connected to either, uh, Rossi or, uh, law enforcement you might want to, maybe, call in sick or something to that effect.”

Prentiss nods, seemingly satisfied, and I turn to see what my boss’s reaction is. He merely nods. “Reid, you come into the office with me to talk to Morgan.”

“Morgan? Isn’t he a police officer?” It’s odd that our goal seems to be to avoid cops and now we’re to embrace one.

“And a friend," Hotch adds before heading into his personal office, leaving me to follow.

***///***

 _"And when the cops, when they assigned a whole army to stop [him], what'd he do? He made 'em partners." ~ Henry Hill, Goodfellas_


	4. The Big Scare

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is from Foyet's POV.

  
_"I don't know about you, but I'm having a ball." ~ Marv, Sin City_

***///***

Fear is a funny thing. It comes in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes it’s just a shadow, sometimes it’s less subtle, like a gun to your head, and other times it’s the guy with a neighborly smile as he waves at the car carrying his old partner, Aaron Hotchner, peels away. My detective’s badge says George Foyet, those crawling the back allies and working the streets know me better as The Reaper, and, in Quaint Cove, I **am** fear. I’m not like the others; I can’t be bought off or intimidated. I always get what I want; more than respect, love, or any other sense of duty people fold to me. A man will stab his partner in the back, but he’ll never betray the one he thinks will eviscerate him and his whole family in the middle of the night. How else are you going to get the regular scum of the town to respect you?

“George?” Speaking of which.

I hate being called by my first name on the job, and he knows it. I roll my eyes and turn to glare at the beat cop. “It’s Foyet, Perrota.”

“What if that was the roommate we’ve been looking for?” His slimy smirk speaks of his urge to call me George again.

“It was.” Under normal circumstances I’d get rid of a man like Perrota. He’s a big guy with a big head and bad case of paranoia. He has his uses though, like a willingness, if not a joy, in getting his hands dirty.

“Then why’d we let her go?” He sounds like he doesn’t trust my moves or motives. Then again he probably doesn’t.

I go to grab a cigarette out of my breast pocket with a sigh and light up using my favorite Zippo. It’s got the Eye of Providence engraved on it, when I found it on the body of the first man I killed on the force the irony of the emblem gave me a chuckle…Fate, clearly, hadn’t been on the man’s side when I met him. I took the lighter as my own, from that moment on, to everyone I met, I was fate. I hold the smoke in for a moment, admiring my lighter, before letting it out as I speak. “You have no tact, Perrota, none at all, you know that?”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” The sudden tension in his voice makes me smile. Causing anger is almost as satisfying as causing fear…especially when it’s impotent in nature.

“Get in the car,” I order without answering. He goes for the driver’s seat, but I don’t stop him. He sees it as taking control; I see it as offering to be my chauffeur. I don’t actually answer his question until we’re a block from Todd’s house. “We grab Todd’s roommate now and we’ll have Hotchner and his new little friends up our ass for the rest of the case. I don’t have the time or patience for all that. So, instead, we wait.” There isn’t another option, not like Hotch would ever make a deal…You could offer that guy world peace if he just let a criminal or two go and he’d tell ya to go fuck yourself. It’d be amusing if it weren’t so damned irritating.

“Whatever you say, boss.” He’s not buying the tactic, but what does he know? He’s always been the type to go straight for action, straight to torture and murder. I’m better than that. I’m subtle.

I drag deep off my little cancer stick before rolling down the window and letting the smoke out in a long wisp. Then I put the cigarette out on the dash without ever saying another word.

***

There’s nothing better than walking into a place where you’re king, which is exactly why I always enjoy entering the offices of the homicide department at police headquarters. There’s only one downside in a slight pain in the ass boss that makes his presence known as I saunter towards my desk.

“Foyet,” his voice is overly hard, bordering on aggressive, like he’s been practicing too long on how to call me into his office before doing so.

I turn on my heel and smile pleasantly wide, “Captain Hawks.” Bruno Hawks. He used to be friends with the previous captain, Jason Gideon, but clearly not good enough friends to keep him from virtually taking Gideon’s job out from under him.

“My office. Now.” He’s faking his seriousness, trying to play the big-bad so everyone listening knows he’s still the boss. Truth is he’s only concerned about one thing, the one thing that keeps him the boss. “Cleared all your cases?” he asks once I’m in his office, still grinning like a dope.

“All but two, sir,” I reply. You clear them all and you’re liable to raise flags.

“Good,” he nods some as he goes to sit in behind his desk, leaving me standing with my now near-Cheshire grin. It’s times like these I picture what his reaction might be if I pulled out my revolver and shot him right through the neck. “That include this new one?”

“Jordan Todd? Yeah, it does.” We don’t have a Missing Persons department in this city. Plenty of people go missing, sure, but none are found alive so we cut out the middle-man.

Hawks eyes narrow just the slightest bit. “Any progress?”

I sigh, give my best guilty face, “No, sir.” I don’t mention Hotch. Why bother? He isn’t anything I can’t handle and better to keep the higher ups in the dark.

“Very well,” Hawks can’t think of anything else to say, clearly. “Dismissed.”

“Thank you, sir,” I reply giving one last cheesy grin before leaving his office and heading over to my desk to finish the mountain of paperwork I still have. At least with Hotchner as a partner I had someone to pawn off all the forms to – he’d always rather do them all than have it appear either of us were slackers. Morgan, my new partner? He could give a shit how I look, he probably already turned in everything for the week on his end, the bastard.

…Three hours later and my end’s finally all done. I stuff it in the inter-office out-box and then collect my things to head out. Despite wanting to go hunt down Hotchner and the brunette he’s no doubt hidden away by now I stick to the responsibility in picking up my girl, JJ.

***

I pull up front at newspaper headquarters and give the horn of my Chevy Camaro a honk. As I see her dash out of the front lobby, a smile as bright as her blond hair, I suddenly remember what’s missing and dive for the glove compartment to pull out my glasses. I don’t need them, never did, but they complete that wholesome picture I prefer having off work. It’s almost surprising how many pretty little things just melt at the geek with the heart of gold act. “Hey, baby,” I coo in a way that almost makes me want to throw up as I reach over the car to open the door for her.

“Hi, George,” she replies with a kiss to my cheek as she climbs in. “And how was your day?” I don’t mind JJ overall, she’s not a straight up dumb blond and generally steers clear of being a whiny bitch like most dames. Also, working for the paper, she’s an amazing asset to me – you control someone in the media, you control the media.

“Oh wonderful,” I answer with a grin as I pull away from the curb and head back towards our place. “Ran into a few old friends and might’ve made some new ones. And you?”

“The usual,” she replies as she locks her seatbelt into place, “rape, murder, mayhem.” And none of it seems to really bother her, I can come home covered in blood and she’ll barely raise a brow. “There’s a rumor the latest girlfriend of mob boss, David Rossi, has gone missing…any truth to that?” JJ asks with a slightly devious smile. Anyone thinking I’m just a some cold bastard using this pretty peach for sport-fucking and to cover my ass better get wise…she’s using me too. It’s the way of the world and JJ knows the score. The only difference between us is we both know how she’s using me, but she doesn’t have a clue how I’m using her.

“Oh, sweetie,” I smile lovingly at her, “you know I can’t talk about any open cases.”

“But it’s true then,” JJ catches me. “I mean, you wouldn’t bring up open cases unless it was one.”

“Clever girl,” I reach over and gently let the back of my hand run along that ivory cheek of hers a moment before returning my hand to the wheel. “We’re looking to question her roommate, if we can find her.”

“She’s missing too?” JJ sounds curious bordering on confused, but I know better. She’s baiting me with that clueless tone, fishing for a story.

I decide to give her one. “Yes, she is, and we’re not sure if she’s just scared or in real trouble. I’m thinking of posting a small reward for help in finding her.” Good luck hiding Todd’s roommate now, Hotchner. Every other citizen in Quaint Cove will be aching to turn her over to me once they hear there’s a reward. “But, look, I shouldn’t be talking about this, I’ll get in trouble, you know that. Anyway, I’m with you now and I’d rather focus on that.” I take my hand off the wheel to take hers and bring it to my lips to kiss. It’s a good idea to let a woman think you’re more in love with her than she is with you; the guilt she’ll feel let’s you get away with murder.

***

I have a nice little apartment in one of the better parts of town that I call home. It was sparse before I met JJ, but now it’s got the stink of a woman all over it. A welcome mat with flowers stitched on it, pillows on the couch for no reason, pictures on the wall of kids at the beach, and smelly soap in the bathroom. I hate all of it. …There was a cat for awhile too, but I got rid of that problem within the first week JJ brought it home.

“So, what do you think?” my girl asks excitedly as she relaxes against the wall waiting for me to unlock and open the door.

“About?” I’d stopped listening to her by the time we got to the parking garage, maybe I should’ve continued. God, why do women have to yap endlessly? You can’t even follow them!

“About Henry.”

“Henry?” What the fuck is this bitch talking about?

JJ laughs as she rolls her eyes some. “For the baby, silly. If it’s a boy, I like the name Henry.” She laughs and shakes her head at me as she passes into the apartment and right to the kitchen to start dinner. That part of living with a woman I don’t hate.

“Right, for the baby,” I laugh off the misstep as I follow her inside, lock the door behind us. “For the baby it’s a great name.” Actually, it’s kind of lame but, hey, it’s her kid right? I shrug off my jacket and hang it up on the coat rack by the door – another one of JJ’s touches.

“I’m not sure about if it’s a girl yet though. Any thoughts?”

I keep the rest of my suit on, badge and gun included, as I head into the kitchen. “Not at the moment, no, sorry,” I answer while coming up behind her. “But then my mind’s not really on baby names right now,” I confess with a soft chuckle as I put my arms on either side of the countertop where she’s standing.

I hear JJ chuckle softly as well before she turns, virtually pinned between the counter and myself. “Is it on dinner?”

“No,” I say slowly, smirking as I do. It’s on that other part of living with a woman I don’t hate. I move in closer, give her a kiss on her cheek, then another on her jawline. I slip my hands to the sides of her expanding baby-bump and kiss her lips.

She returns the kiss and then smiles some. “So you’re not in the least bit hungry?”

“Not for food,” I insist, pressing myself into that soft, supple, body of hers, all of which gives save for the stomach that holds a future of fear for upcoming generations. “What do you say, beautiful?” my hands slip down, move to start gathering up the fabric of her black A-line skirt. “Care to put dinner on hold for a few hours?”

“A few hours?”

“Well, I don’t mean to brag…” I trail off into a laugh JJ joins me in.

“I wonder if those at your work know how wicked you can be,” she comments as I finally get a hand on the strap the runs from her nylons to her garter belt and give it a snap. She jumps, startled by the sudden bite of pain it no doubt caused.

I remove my glasses, set them on the counter, and, this time, make the kiss count. Start off a little forceful, just enough to get her to think twice about resisting, and then it’s so soft and slow she doesn’t even notice my fingers are on the garter strap of the other leg…until I snap that one against her skin hard enough she almost buckles. “They don’t have a clue.”

…And sometimes fear is the guy sharing the bed with a pretty, pregnant, blond.

***///***

 _"You can scream now if you want." ~ Marv, Sin City_


	5. The Third Man

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is in Hotch's POV

  
_"A cop? That's a funny kind of a friend. / Well, he's a funny kind of a cop." ~ Joe & Johnny, The Killing_

***///***

I enter my office to see my good friend sitting as comfortably in my chair as if it were his. His arms folded behind his head and his feet up on the desk as he gives me that same shit-eating grin he’s had since he first strolled into the homicide division of the QCPD back when I was lead detective.

“I shot the last man who sat in my chair,” I deadpan.

My friend chuckles some as he lets his arms and legs swing down so he’s sitting upright. “Yeah, but I bet he didn’t have the smooth swagger I got.”

I finally give my amusement away, crack a smile. “I have yet to meet another man that does.”

He laughs. I laugh. “So, how the hell ya been, Hotch?” he asks as he heads over to shake my hand as is customary for us. We’d hug but…we’re not huggers.

“I’ve been worse,” I answer. “How, ‘bout you, Morgan? You doing alright?”

“Gotta crazy partner that seems like he would like nothin’ more than to blow my brains out, a boss that, I’m guessing, would look the other way and let ‘im, and a missing person’s case with at least three different suspects already.”

“Which is why you’re here.” It’s not a question and Morgan’s smile in reply tells me he knows it as well as I.

“You want help with a problem you go to the best.” He confesses.

Before Morgan can get more detailed in the help he needs though, I hear a clearing of the throat behind me. The kid. Reid. Almost forgot about him. “So, uh…what is it you want from us?” As much as he’s determined to be accounted for he seems unsure how to go about it exactly.

Morgan looks stunned a moment, then he cracks a smile and laughs. “Hey, didn’t see you there,” he extends his hand past me to Reid, “and who might you be?”

“Uh…” as Morgan shakes the kid’s hand I can tell he’s intentionally shaking too hard. I can’t tell if it’s Morgan being irked at us being interrupted, just asserting his dominance, or some kind of endurance test. Whatever it is Reid looks like he’s having a seizure. But then the slim built guy twists some and Morgan’s hold is broken. Pretty impressive. Reid straightens himself, pushes his glasses back up his nose, and smiles. “Dr Spencer Reid. I’m, uh, Hotch’s new assistant.”

“Say what?”

“Three Ph.D.s, Gideon sent him my way.” I decide to answer both inevitable questions from Morgan with one shot to move things along.

“Ah,” Morgan knows that’s all the explanation needed…for now anyway. He gets back to business. “Anyway, the case’s on a missing girl, Jordan Todd, and she’s gotta roommate I really need to talk to.”

“Why?” Reid pipes in. Nope, not about to be brushed aside. As irritating as I find it, I find it equally admirable.

Morgan seems to feel the same way as his face flashes a stare before it melts back into his confident smile. “Cause she just so happens to be one of those suspects I mentioned.”

“She’s a suspect?” I break in before Reid has a chance. He can make himself known, but I’m still the one in charge. And to make that all the clearer I’ve already started to head to my chair, leaving the other men to their own seat-finding devices. “On what grounds?”

“On the grounds that everyone who knows the two girls say they hate each other.”

“Really?”

“The word cat-fight came up more than roommate,” Morgan adds with a grin. My guess? His mind’s eye has come up with images of the two mud-wrestling or something. The far off look only lasts a moment or two, then he comes back to the here and now. “I figure she’ll be the easiest to get anything out of compared to the other suspects.”

“Which are?” Reid breaks in from the spot he’d found for himself on the old couch in the back of the room. Despite the copious legroom he sits with his legs tucked up against the couch and the rest of him sort of bunched together like a pinched spring. He is the exact opposite of Morgan.

Morgan who stretches himself over the chair on the opposite side of the desk from me like some kind of lazy jungle cat. (I’ve been hearing Garcia’s descriptions of him for far too long.) The man tilts his head almost all the way back before turning it some to spot Reid as he answers. “David Rossi and some unknown suspect…probably someone in the department.”

Reid was doing pretty well, better than I expected, and then he puts together enough to make me smile. “To blackmail Rossi.” And it’s not even phrased as a question.

It pleasantly surprises Morgan too as he looks back at me with a smile before turning back to Reid to reply to him. “You got it, kid. Rossi’s got plenty of cops on his payroll so it’s possible one, or a few, got greedy, took the girl as leverage for a higher pay off.” He turns back to me. “So, the roommate,” I nod as signal for him to continue, “I went to her work and a waitress there said she’d suggested Ms. Prentiss come see you. I thought, maybe, Prentiss did.”

“If she were innocent.” It’s more of a prompt, a way to gauge Morgan’s thoughts about Prentiss’ possible part in this disappearance.

“Maybe, maybe not.” He’s as unsure about Prentiss as I am. That and Morgan’s not in the habit of trusting anyone. It’s bad for most things but, in this city, I’m pretty sure it’s a big part of what’s kept him alive this long. “So, did she come see you?”

“She did,” I confess before letting out a sigh. “I’m setting her up in a hotel somewhere nearby, her place isn’t safe.”

“Foyet?” Morgan guesses without hesitation.

I nod. “She’s quick though, didn’t identify herself or even admit she lived with Jordan. Provided she doesn’t do anything stupid we should be able to figure this out without anyone else going missing.” As I talk I get up, go to my door, and open it. “Garcia?” My secretary smiles up at me wide and questioningly. Then I notice my lovely client with the ruby lips is already gone. I frown some. “Garcia, where did you set Ms. Prentiss up?”

“The Ambassador Motel,” Garcia replies, “it’s the closest with the best security.” I give a nod and turn back to Morgan and Reid in the room but, before I can say anything, Garcia speaks up again. “But I don’t think she’ll be there just now.”

“Why not?” I ask in a tone a little harsher than I intend. It’s not Garcia I’m cross with, it’s the client. I don’t like being dicked around and I already get the feeling she’s decided to do something stupid. I think I scare Garcia a little anyway as she first gives a jump, then frowns.

“Well, she, uh, said she was going to tell her boss in person that she wouldn’t be able to come to work for a few days.”

“So much for no one else going missing,” Morgan, now on his feet, sighs from within the room.

“Where’s she work?”

“The Stallion.”

“Fuck,” I spit out under my breath before looking back at Morgan. “Come on, let’s go.” Then I remember and call out, “Reid!”

“Here!” The youngest of us calls back as he comes within line of sight almost instantly. Seems he’d balled up on the couch to make springing into action that much easier.

“My gun and holster are in the left bottom drawer of my desk, get them.” I instruct before stepping out of the doorway and going to a picture on the wall over Garcia’s desk behind which my second gun is always hidden. I told Garcia about it when she first started to work for me, in case she ever felt she might need it…I don’t think she’s ever even touched the painting that covers the false portion of the wall.

“Guns? Already?” the normally bright and bubbly woman asks with a mix of worry and even disappointment.

Morgan goes to sit on the corner of Garcia’s desk with an easy smile. “Don’t worry, baby girl, I won’t let anything bad happen to the Boss Man.” He means me.

Garcia’s smile returns immediately. “And who’s going to protect you, handsome?”

“Maybe the kid will?” Morgan cracks. Then he laughs as Reid nearly skids out on the switch from my office carpet to the main rooms hard floor. The only thing that keeps Reid from going down is Morgan grabbing his arm to help him steady.

“Reid, when you get the chance get some new shoes,” I tell him as I cover up the false wall once again and Garcia shrinks from the gun I’ve placed on the edge of her desk opposite Morgan while I do so.

“I’m fine,” Reid answers simply as Morgan takes the gun and holster from him.

“I think I got it from here, slicks,” Morgan teases a now almost red-faced Reid, still chuckling, before he heads over to me.

I check the second gun, make sure it’s clean and loaded, before Morgan reaches me and we switch. I slide my holstered gun onto my belt a little farther back than normal so my jacket keeps the gun hidden.

Morgan takes the second gun, the one from the wall, and hands it to Reid. “You know how to use it and everything?” he asks, now a little more serious.

“I have a 187 IQ and three Ph.D.s, I think I can loop my belt through a leather holster and my pants at the same time." That wasn't what Morgan met, but Reid's tone as he answers let’s everyone know he’s both embarrassed about the slip and pissed at Morgan’s current treatment of him. And, thankfully, Morgan doesn't seem up to pushing it.

“Play nice, boys,” Garcia pipes up. She always seems to want people to get along, even when they have no reason to.

“Garcia,” I call my secretary’s attention back to me. “If Prentiss comes back here don’t let her leave again. I don’t care if you have to lock her in my office, she stays. Got me?”

“I’ll even use the cuffs if I have to.”

“Cuffs?” I don’t have cuffs. Despite what must be my obvious confusion Garcia just smiles. “Right…” I’m a little thrown for another moment before I refocus. “Morgan, Reid, come on.”

“Be careful out there!” Garcia calls out as I exit with my old friend, Morgan, and new assistant, Reid, close behind.

***///***

 _"...This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship." ~ Rick, Casablanca_


	6. The Stallion: Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is in Reid's POV

  
_"I'm in the waste management business. Everybody immediately assumes you're mobbed up. It's a stereotype, and it's offensive." ~ Tony Soprano, The Sopranos_

***///***

If I thought I might’ve risked my life in getting in a vehicle driven by Aaron Hotchner before, I was sorely mistaken. He never goes below 60 and blows through so many red lights I start to wonder if he isn’t colorblind. But I know better than to say anything, I just buckle up and hold on for dear life as my new boss rushes to find our client before she finds whoever she it is she’s looking for…Rossi’s my guess.

The car doesn’t even come to a full stop in front of _The Stallion_ before Hotch is out he’s barking orders, splitting himself off from Morgan and I. He reminds me to stick with Morgan like I’m a child that might wander off at the mall. I don’t say anything though, even if I did Hotch wouldn’t hear it anyway as he dashes down an alley between The Stallion and some liquor store. Instead I just follow Morgan inside the club without so much as a change in expression.

It’s only upon entering that I realize _The Stallion_ is not the type of place you generally want to enter all alone unless there’s a damn fine reason. It’s also not the place you really wanna enter with a another guy by your side…it doesn’t send the best message to club full of dope peddlers, droppers, and dames that are likely twice as dangerous as any two-bit hood waving a gun at you in an alley. “So…now what?” I ask my unofficial and unwanted partner for the evening.

“What Hotch said, man,” Morgan replies, scanning the room as he talks. “Keep Rossi busy until Hotch can find Prentiss and get her the hell outta here.”

“And how do we do that?”

Morgan turns to smirk some at me, then shrugs. “We run interception.” He then uses his head to direct me to an booth with a handful of people all sitting together. It doesn’t take a genius to tell this is the VIP table and the man in the center, with the girl practically in his lap, is the leader of this pack. Still Morgan explains. “That’s Rossi’s table, he’s the one with the girl, and that’s who we’re gonna run interception on.”

I ignore the continued sport metaphor – guy musta been a football player at some point – and just bring up the next problem. “How? I mean he doesn’t exactly look like the type to be thrilled to have people interrupt his, uh, party.”

“Ah, see, there’s the advantage in having me around, Kid…”

“Reid,” I break in.

“Huh?”

“Reid. My name is Reid, not Kid or Sport or Slick or whatever nickname you should be giving a grade-schooler. My name is Reid.”

Morgan raises his hands in mock self-defense. “Okay, sorry. Look, the idea is that he’s not stupid enough to just off a cop in the middle of his own place so, at the very least, he’ll tolerate my buggin’ him under the guise of police business.” I nod my understanding and overall agreement and Morgan’s face breaks into a big, cheesy, smile. “Now let’s go, Champ!” Jock asshole.

I can tell Rossi’s spotted us well before we hit the table, but he pretends he doesn’t as he entertains the girl on his lap with some tale that makes her giggle and coo like there isn’t a brain in her head. When we finally arrive though he does take note. “Officer Morgan, did the police department open up a babysitting department?” The girl, along with the rest of the table, give a laugh.

I half expect Morgan to join in, but he doesn’t. He just stares as he waits for the group to settle down and then speaks. “Where’s your girlfriend?”

“I’m right here,” the girl in Rossi’s lap says with an almost flirty smile.”

“Not you, Blondie,” Morgan counters, his smile back and cocky as ever. “Jordan Todd.”

“Name doesn’t ring a bell,” Rossi says simply.

“Is, uh…is that because you have poor recall or the girl on your lap isn’t letting you think straight?” I ask surprising not only the table, but Morgan as well.

As if simultaneously the table turns to gauge Rossi’s reaction, which takes him a few minutes to give. When he does it’s in the form of a slight smirk. “Aren’t you the bold one?” he makes a single motion of his head as signal for the table to clear, which it does in silence with surprising speed. Once alone Rossi’s smile fades. “Who the fuck are you to come to my place and bust my balls?”

I open my mouth to talk but Morgan jumps in before I have the chance. “We’re not here to ruffle feathers. You answer our questions, we go away.”

“Or I call over a bouncer and have you both tossed out of here using your heads to open the door?” Rossi offers before his smug smile returns. “Let’s go with that, shall we?” He gives a wave to one of the goons who’d been at the table before.

“What if one of them is who’s setting you up for the disappearance of Ms. Todd?” I suggest quickly both not wanting to get kicked out or have my head used as a battering ram. I rather like my head's shape the way it is and don't think I could afford a new pair of glasses right now. The man in the fine Italian suit simply shakes his head. He’s not buying it so I try a different tactic. “Why wouldn’t you call the police on us?”

Rossi gives a small snort. “Would you?”

“No, but that’s because they’re in your pocket,” I answer honestly.

"I'm a businessman..."

I know the little speech that's coming so cut to the point. “Unless they aren’t anymore. Is it, uh, is it possible that some of your friends at the police department have,” I shrug, “turned against you?”

“You saying I can’t handle my business?”

“I’m just saying it’s strange that, uh, for a man who seems like he’d be intelligent enough to prefer to call the police, thus getting me arrested and Officer Morgan in trouble and keeping his own hands clean just, you know, threatened the more blunt and tactless route of, um, head-bashing.”

“Is this kid for real?” the mobster in front of me asks the cop beside me.

Morgan gives a small laugh and confesses. “I couldn’t tell ya, just met him myself a few hours ago.”

Rossi’s goon arrives and sets a hand on my shoulder with such force I nearly buckle (Morgan barely moves when the guy’s other hand lands on his) but my focus remains on his boss. “Anyone ask for a pay increase recently?”

Rossi almost laughs at the question. “Everyone.”

“Anyone willing to kidnap an innocent girlfriend of yours to get it?”

Rossi waves the bulldozer of a guy away and I finally feel like I can stand straight again as he speaks. “Maybe. But if that’s the case it’s an in-house problem and I'll handle it that way.”

Morgan finally speaks up. “If someone in your circle’s takin’ your girl for some kinda blackmail then, clearly, they ain’t afraid of you.”

“And if they aren’t afraid of me, they certainly won’t be afraid of you, Officer Morgan,” Rossi counters with a slight smirk.

“Yeah, true,” Morgan admits. “So, who do ya think would be that fearless?”

Rossi just shrugs. “Couldn’t tell you.”

“Couldn’t or wouldn’t?”

“Take your pick.” I get the gut sense Rossi’s not just being difficult for difficulty’s sake. He’s holding back, but then with a “powerful businessman” it goes with the territory so I gotta wonder what gives. What's he holding back and why? Whatever information he’s holding onto stays with him though as he looks beyond us and announces a new arrival at the table. “If it isn’t the dick, Hotchner.” …I guess they have history.

Hotch stands between Morgan and I in a silent glare for what feels like an hour before speaking. “Ms. Emily Prentiss isn’t working here anymore. If anyone related to you or your business approaches her we’re going to have some serious problems. Understood?”

“Now why would I do that?” The question sounds a little more genuine than I’d expect, especially if he’d been the one who sent Foyet and Perrota to pick up Prentiss earlier. “If I were you,” Rossi continues, “I’d be more concerned about that woman getting into trouble all on her own than trouble going to look for her.”

“Just stay away from her.” Hotch orders simply before going to leave the table and head towards the front exit. I don't even have time to ask where, exactly, Prentiss is at the moment as Morgan follows and practically pulls me with him. I guess he's not sure I'm not going to open my mouth again? We exit and, still just outside, Hotch turns on his heel. “Reid, you stay here.”

“What?” Morgan and I ask almost in unison.

“I can’t be everywhere at once, you wanna help? Wanna be my assistant? Assist me and keep an eye on Rossi.” It’s pretty clear from his tone this isn’t up for debate. “If you need something talk to Lila Archer, she’s a dancer in the club. She owes me, she’ll help you out.” This is it, this is my chance, it’s either agree or get lost.

I agree. “Okay then. Uh…for how long?”

“Stay with him until tomorrow, I’ll meet you out in back. Here.”

“Twenty-four hours?”

Hotch gives a single nod, then turns to Morgan. “I’ll drive you back to my office to get your car. You can give me some help with Ms. Prentiss.”

“She give ya a fight?” Morgan gives a smile like he’s having a private giggle, but the laugh isn’t coming out.

“She’s…a handful.” I can tell Hotch’s trying to be polite, trying not to call Prentiss something rude.

The laugh slips out. “From the looks of her, she’d be a couple.”

Hotch’s lips slip into a faint curl of amusement. “No comment.”

***///***

 _"A wise guy's always right even when he's wrong, he's right." ~ Benjamin "Lefty" Ruggiero, Donnie Brasco_


	7. The Stallion: Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is in Hotch's POV

  
_"She can't be all bad. No one is. ~ Ann Miller / Well, she comes the closest." ~ Jeff, Out of the Past_

***///***

I almost get out of the car before parking it. “You find Rossi, keep him busy until I find Prentiss and get her outta here!” I order to Morgan as he leans across the passenger seat to make sure the car’s not going anywhere. “Reid, stay with Morgan.” I add just in case the kid gets any ideas that this is a place he can wander off in before heading around back to the employees’ entrance. If Prentiss is smart, and she gives every indication aside from this little stunt that she is, she’ll enter through the back and stay hidden away until ready to make her move.

Naturally the employees’ entrance is watched over by a gargoyle of a bouncer and, just as naturally, he can be bought off with a few twenties of cold, hard, cash. I’m in the back of the club faster than if I’d done the standup thing and entered through the front. Lucky for my clients I left “the standup thing” behind after being kicked off the force. The hallway’s wide, but the only light touching it is coming from different dressing rooms and a double swinging door leading to the kitchen. I check in every room I can, getting a mix of looks from annoyance to confusion to interest but no Prentiss.

I pass the Ladies’ Room before halting as I hear the door open and close. I catch a whiff of that cinnamon scent Prentiss had when in the car and turn on my heel.

Whether she was already on edge or thought I was an attacker I’m not sure but she fights the moment my hand grabs her wrist. And she fights hard. By the time I get us both in a place where there won’t be a scene alerting everyone within a five mile radius, a small utility closet, she’s scratched my neck so that it bleeds in thin red lines. I don’t want to slap her outright so go with shaking and forcing her up against the wall trying to get her to focus, to see who I am. Instead it gets her to pull a gun hidden god knows where and stick it right where it counts. I stop, let go of her, and show my hands to her. “It’s Aaron Hotchner.”

“I don’t give a fuck who it is,” her eyes glare out in the dark closet. “You grab me like that again I’ll turn you into a woman.”

And I thought Elle played rough. “I know what you’re thinking of doing, Prentiss, but you can’t.”

“As far as I can tell you’re in no position to tell me what I can and can’t do.” She presses forward which would be stimulating if it weren’t for the cold, steel, barrel of a handgun poking my groin. “Now get the hell out of my way.”

“You hired me to help you. Let me.”

“What, with your cop buddy, Morgan and boy wonder, Reid?” The woman gave a snort. “I think I’ll take my chances on my own, thanks. You can keep what I paid you already.” She goes to move past me but I block her way with my hand. “Do I have to remind you where my gun’s pointed, Mr. Hotchner?”

“No, Ms Prentiss, you don’t. But I need to remind you that if you go out there and shoot Rossi you’re giving yourself a death sentence. And destroying any chance of finding Jordan. Ever.”

“I know that.”

“Do you really?” Logically I’m sure she knows, but she's going off anger right now and that can be blinding. “I swear to you, Emily, if you let me do my job, my way, we’ll find your roommate. But I need you to trust me. Can you do that?”

She looks me in the eye, seeming to debate if she really can trust me, before I see the decision made in a single blink. I know what she’s going to do not more than a second after she does and grab for the gun in her hand. She doesn’t give it up easily; I end up having to slam her back into the wall and knock the wind out of her just to get the piece out of her possession. I empty the chamber, let the bullets spill out onto the floor where the make the sound of wind chimes, and stuff the gun into my pocket before moving closer to help Emily straighten up. It’s a mistake as she’s recovered and returns to slapping and scratching me in no time.

It’s when she goes for my pocket with the gun in it that I’m able to grab her wrist and pin it to the wall behind her. One down, one to go. She gets a few more slaps to my face in before I get the other pinned up as well. “Stop!” I bark at her.

It doesn’t work. “Go fuck yourself!” she snaps back, her eyes seeming to try and burn a hole through mine. The woman’s gotten so worked up now she’s nearly panting and her hair’s as wild as her eyes. Won’t lie, it’s a major turn-on of a look in a woman.

I nearly smile. “You know I expect this kind of trouble from someone I’m pursuing, not a client.”

“Guess it’s your bad luck then, isn’t it?”

“You have any other weapons on you?”

“Maybe.”

“I’ll frisk you if I have to.”

“Go ahead.”

I can sense what she’s thinking. Normally to frisk her I’ll have to let those slender wrists of hers go and, when I do that, she’ll have a chance to attack once more…attack and then escape. Unfortunately for Ms Prentiss I’ve found a way around this some time ago. I move to pin her wrists together under one of my hands, above her head, and move my body closer to hers using my weight to keep hers in check. “Why hire me and give me this much trouble?” I ask as I use the now free hand I have to run over her body, checking for any bump that might be a weapon.

She doesn’t answer or squirm under my hand. Either she’s had this done to her before or she’s not nervous for some other reason. It’s only when I get to her outer thighs that she moves at all, and it’s to spread her legs. I pause, pull my hand back, unsure what, exactly, is going on in her head. “Isn’t that what I’m supposed to do? Spread ‘em?” Her lips curl some. She’s playing with me.

So I play with her. I put my hand back and slip it between her legs, feeling the inside of each muscled thigh and moving my hand up against her groin just a second, checking for a weapon (one never knows with ladies). “Looks like you’re all clear.”

“Looks?”

“Feels,” I correct myself. “Now if I let you go will you wait in the car while I do the job you hired me too?”

“Where are the others?”

“Keeping Rossi busy and, hopefully, getting some information out of him.” I smile some. “Please, Emily, just give me a few more days before falling back on the gunning-down-the-mobster-in-the-middle-of-his-own-nightclub plan you have.”

“Make it worth my while?”

“How’s that?”

“Let me be part of it and not just as a client.”

I look her over some, admiring the fact that, with her hands pinned up high under one of mine, I can practically see every inch of her chest under her suit jacket. The delicately designed black lace bra holding back the near flawless flesh of her breasts as it moves rhythmically with her breathing. Near flawless in there being a tiny freckle on the top of her left breast. It’s temptingly cute really. I reply. “Only if you follow my orders. I can’t have you going off and risking cases and my reputation. Understand me?” She nods slowly. “Okay then,” I agree, loosening my grip on her wrists so she can slip them out and lower them some. “But I still want you waiting in the car for this, okay? If Rossi’s in on it and sees you it could only make things worse.”

“Fine.” She then gives a soft smile. “Care to get off me now?”

There’s a split second I’m not following, then she presses her body up against me and I do. Oh god do I follow as that near bare chest of hers presses against my covered one. “Right,” I clear my throat as I step back from her some, “sorry.”

“Where’s your car?”

“Out front. Just get in, keep your head down, and we’ll be out in a few minutes.”

Emily nods slowly once more before smiling, “Okay then, I’ll see you in the car.” She then grows very serious, dangerous seriously. “You better not fuck me on this, Hotch.”

“I won’t.” I promise her before letting her exit the utility closet first. I leave a moment after and am able to watch her exit out the way we’d both, separately, entered. Only once the door is shut and I’m sure she, at least, isn’t about to come back and go after Rossi do I head down the hall towards the club itself.

***

I get to the opening when I bump into Lila Archer, a dancer here at _The Stallion_. Sweet girl, something like catnip for crazies though. Come to me twice so far over stalkers and I'm always waiting for her to come to me again. She smiled softly. "Hey Hotch."

"Hey Lila, how's it going?"

The girl rolls her eyes. "Same as ever."

"Anyone giving you trouble?"

"Just the regulars," Lila answers with a shrug. "Nothing I or the bouncers here can't handle. How about you? How's everything going with the business?"

I smile softly. "Busy."

"Well that's good, right? For you, at least."

I give a nod, then decide to ask. "You think you can do me a favor, Lila?" I generally don't like asking clients for favors, I don't want them thinking they're indebted to me after a case is over, but I don't want Reid left hanging in a mobster's club without someone looking after him.

Thankfully Lila doesn't have a problem with the concept of doing me a solid, as Morgan would put it. "Anything for the man who saves my life twice."

"I'm going to have someone stay here and watch Rossi, his name's Dr. Spencer Reid, can you keep an eye on him for me? Make sure he gets anything he might need?"

"Sure thing, Hotch, no problem."

"Thank you so much." I smile and she gives me hug before letting me go. I know she'll watch me to find out who Reid is so never bother to point him out.

***

Once I have a little chat with Rossi, tell him Prentiss is now officially off limits to him and sort out the boys, leaving Reid with orders to follow Rossi around, I lead Morgan back to the car where Prentiss, I hope, is waiting for us. Thank god she is.

She’s also in the passenger seat which causes Morgan’s rare frown to appear. “Just…take the backseat for now,” I tell him. Considering the woman I consider us lucky she didn't just take the driver's seat.

Morgan does as told but clearly still isn’t pleased about it. “Ya know, normally I ride shotgun.”

“Well then this change of events must be deeply disappointing to you,” Emily replies smoothly with a cupid’s bow of a smile before turning to me as I start the car. “Where’s the kid?”

“I told him to keep an eye on Rossi.”

“Is that wise?” I turn to look at her questioningly so she expands. “Rossi can spot a tail. Are you sure Reid is up to it?”

“Aw, Pretty Boy’ll be fine, don’t you worry,” Morgan cracks from behind us. “He handled himself great in the club.”

I pull away from the street and glance at Morgan in the rear-view. “Rossi give you anything?”

“Nothing but indications it might be someone within his crew.”

“But not him?”

Morgan shakes his head. “I don’t think so, no.” I nod; I got that feeling too just from the brief exchange I had with the mobster. (Rossi was far too curious as to why he'd send his men after Prentis to have actually sent his men, Foyet and Perrota, after her.) Morgan shifts up some to rest his arms on the backs of Prentiss and my chairs and turns to the woman. “Doesn’t seem to think much of you, by the way.”

“They never do when I dump them,” Prentiss counters calmly.

“You dated him?!” I snap, being the exact opposite of calm.

“Sure.”

“Why the fuck didn’t you tell us?!” My foot starts to leaden and the car speeds up. I probably shouldn’t drive when ticked off…too late now.

Prentiss looks at me and shrugs. “I didn’t think it mattered.”

Morgan snorts. “You used to bang the mobster that might’ve taken part in the disappearance of your roommate and you don’t think it matters? Come on, I know you’re not that dumb.”

I take deep breaths to clear my mind before a piece clicks. “You didn’t tell us because it implicates you. Rossi moved onto Todd after you. Am I right?”

“If that’s how you want to put it,” Prentiss gives a half-hearted confession.

“When we get back to the office you’re telling us everything.”

“That include the length of his-“

I stop the car short at a red light and Morgan nearly ends up sitting between us in the front as a result. “Hotch, maybe I should drive, hm?” My friend offers with a slight smile up at me as he tries to work his way back into a seated position.

“I’m fine,” I growl out. “We’re almost at the office anyway.” The light turns green and I hit the gas which gets Morgan flung into position in the backseat once more. He’ll give me shit about this when it’s just us guys again but right now I’m still too focused on the woman and her consistent deception to care. “Prentiss if you want to help us, really help us, in this case you need to be honest and open with us. You can’t keep dicking us around. Understand?” I turn my head to look her in the eye.

“I was with him for six months. We broke up and he started to date Jordan. Happy?”

“Hardly.”

***///***

 _"“I don’t usually make it a habit to butt into women’s affairs...” / “Don’t change your habits on my account.” ~ Halliday & Joan/'Chiquita', The Big Steal_


	8. Trouble is My Business

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is in Foyet's POV

  
_"That's life. Whichever way you turn, Fate sticks out a foot to trip you." ~ Al, Detour_

***///***

There’s something really fulfilling about a pretty woman screaming your name no matter the reason. It’s another reason I’ve hung onto JJ…she’s a screamer. It builds up slow and steady into a crescendo that almost sounds like I’m hurting her as she climaxes. Music to my ears.

What isn’t though is her goddamned alarm that goes off way too early in the morning. I’ve broken three so far but she keeps buying new ones…and took to putting them out of my immediate reach so I can't just break them. “Turn that fucking thing off!” I yell at her as I groan a little in the bed.

“Alright,” she snips back as she reaches over to turn the alarm off. “Jesus, George, relax.” She sounds a little huffy. “You know you should be thanking me, if it weren’t for the alarm you’d never to be to work on time.”

Like I give a shit. I give a sigh as I slowly roll out of the bed. “I’m sorry, baby, but you know I’m not a morning person.”

“No kidding,” JJ replies with a slightly sly smile as she returns to the dresser mirror and grabs a nearby scarf, wrapping it around her neck to hide the bruising there from last night.

Not that I’m in any better shape mind you. Girl’s got claws and she uses them so my back’s torn half to shreds and there’s droplets of blood left on our sheets that cause me to stick some to the bed making it all the harder to get up. But I do get up and out and head over to JJ as she works make-up over her face to enhance her looks. “No shower?” I ask, coming up behind her.

“I already took one,” she smiles her reply.

“Ah.”

“I’m way ahead of you today.”

I smirk, wrap an arm around her stomach and the other around her neck. “Aren’t you always?” I put my lips against her jaw-line before looking at our reflection in the mirror.

JJ smirks. “Just what do you think you’re doing, Mr. Foyet?”

“Officer Foyet,” I correct her before moving my lips down to her neck, nuzzling the scarf out of the way to do it. “Come on, baby, just one more time before we have to go to work. You can be late, can’t you?”

She sighs. “You still need to take a shower and get ready.”

“I can be late.” I go to slip the hand over her neck down into her shirt a bit. “And you can be late,” I kiss her neck again, letting teeth playfully graze her skin. “So let’s be late for a good reason.”

She calls me a horn dog or something but gives in. Lets me have her right there at the dresser with a few simple shifts in clothing. Still, when done, she realizes she needs new stockings and underwear as I’ve all but torn hers to shreds.

And me? Well I’m just fine, giving her a kiss and going to shower then dress. In fact I’m still ready to leave before she is.

***

Work is the same as ever, though this time Morgan is so far up my ass I wanna handcuff him to the patrol car bumper and drive off dragging him behind me. …The paperwork I know that’ll follow an incident like that stops me though.

I finally loose him when our shift is over and he’s got no more legit reasons to follow me. From the station I go directly to The Stallion to have a little chat with David Rossi. Sometimes I wonder just how clever that guy really is, after all he’s still not realizing who’s really running this town. That it isn’t him. It’s me. Which is why I can burst into the club and sit right down at the man’s table without anyone even trying to look me in the eye while I do it. “Where’s my money?” I ask without hesitation.

“In your bank account,” he shrugs, unconcerned, “or maybe under your floorboards. I don’t know where you stash it, Officer.”

“Don’t fuck around with me.”

“You know your partner, Officer Morgan, was here last night..” Rossi always bothers me. He never seems like he’s concerned about anything, you could threaten the guy with castration and he’d make a crack about always wanting to hit a high note like a eunuch or something. “He wants to know where Jordan Todd is. Any thoughts?” But Rossi’s still serious when it comes right down to it, he's not an idiot making cracks, he's a clever asshole making cracks.

“Maybe under your floorboards?” I offer.

Only Rossi reacts, only he laughs, before leaning over the table some. “You’re not getting more money.”

“Then you’re not getting more of my services.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning you might as well buy a burial plot for Ms. Todd with the money you’re not paying me.”

“So you know where she is?” Rossi questions as if he already knows I do.

I’m a cop, I’ve played that trick before, so there’s no way I’m falling for it. “I didn’t say that.”

“But if I don’t pay…”

“Then you’re on your own.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Rossi smiles. “I didn’t hire him but rumor’s that Aaron Hotchner is on the case.”

I give a snort. “I know.” This time I’m the one showing no concern as I get up from the table with a smirk.

“Remind me again why I shouldn’t just kill you outright.”

“Because I’m a hero officer of the law,” I reply with a slight smile, “and you’re smarter than that. Almost smart enough to just pay what I ask.” Even as I go to leave I know this isn’t the end, that Rossi’ll probably send some half-wit goon after me to try and kick my ass so he can reassert his dominance or whatever. It’s not gonna happen though, that goon’ll never be seen again. I’m halfway out the club when I spot him. The Buddy Holly kid from Hotch’s car. It’s too perfect to resist.

***

He must not have seen me coming because when I go to sit across from him Buddy Holly's eyes go wide and he nearly spills his drink. “Are you scared?” I ask teasingly as I give him a wicked smirk so he knows how fucked he’s about to be.

He knows. “Um…uh…no?” He’s gotta know.

“You should be.”

“Wh-why Officer Foyet?”

I wonder if he’ll end up pissing himself? I lean in on him some, he leans back and fixes his glasses a little trying to act casual. “So, what’s your name, again?”

“Dr Spencer Reid.”

“Doctor?”

“PhDs. Three of them.”

Nerd. Bet he's never been laid in his life...and never will be either. “You following Rossi?” I ask.

“Maybe.”

“You are,” I smirk a little, glance back at Rossi’s table a moment, then turn back to the thin nerd in glasses and Chucks before me with my decision made. “We’re taking a walk.”

“I’d rather not.”

I smile at him a moment then stand and go around to grab his neck hard. “It wasn’t an offer,” I growl in his ear before lifting him from the chair and virtually dragging him out the back of the club.

I have to admit I’m surprised to see he’s packing…too bad for him he’s clueless as to how to use it and it’s mine all of two minutes after I spot it. He tries fighting back but I’ve got years of experience and fifty pounds (at the very least) on him. I’ve also got my favorite knife – another “gift” from some sap I killed on the job – which I use just enough to put the scrawny fuck down on his knees. I leave him bloody, broken, and probably with soiled pants. When I bend down to pick his glasses up off the floor he flinches. I kick him twice in the gut, the second time so hard he gets a little airborne and slams into the dumpster with a pained groan. “Two for flinching,” I crack before going past the near statue-like bouncer and head back in.

It's nothing personal. The kid just has the bad luck for being in the wrong place at the wrong time and agreeing to do the wrong thing for the wrong person. In kicking skinny Reid's skinny ass all over the back alley I can remind Rossi why he pays me, send a message to Hotch about sticking his nose in my business, and generally get my built-up aggressions out...I couldn't on the job with Morgan hounding me like he'd been.

Rossi looks up when I set Dr. Nerd’s busted up glasses in front of him but says nothing. “This is why you need to pay me more.”

“Because you can find me busted up glasses like no one else?” The mobster jokes with a small chuckle that his moronic crew joins him in until I glare up at them.

“You had a tail, courtesy of Hotchner, I just took care of it for you.” I explain before smirking. “I’ll expect my latest, increased, payment by the end of the week.” Then, having made my point, I go.

***///***

 _"I wasn’t strong enough to resist corruption, but I was strong enough to fight for a piece of it." ~ Joe Morse, Force of Evil_


	9. Detour

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is from Reid's POV

  
_"A black pool opened up at my feet. I dived in. It had no bottom." ~ Philip Marlow, Murder, My Sweet_

***///***

I open my eyes slowly. Even that hurts. But it doesn’t hurt as much as breathing does. If I had to guess I’d say at least two of my ribs are broken, that’s not my major concern though. It’s the stab wound to my stomach that I force my hand over and into to try and curb the bleeding. I should get up. I need to get up. Grabbing part of the dumpster for stability I pull myself to my feet and try to look around. At night, without my glasses, I’m blind as a bat…which really aren’t as blind as one would think with their sonar, but I don’t have that. I hear the door open behind me and pray to whatever the hell is above watching this crummy world that it’s not Officer Foyet back for another round. The click of heels on pavement tell me I’m lucky for the moment.

“Oh my god,” a soft, female, voice calls out as the clicks come faster and closer to me. “What happened?!”

“Guess,” I snap a little, not in the mood for dumb questions as my strength drains from my gut.

She doesn’t reply, just runs off. Great, I get help and then piss her off. I’m a fucking genius. ...Only that’s not what happens; what happens is I go down and wake up on a steel counter in the club’s kitchen with my shirt opened and some guy standing over me.

“Don’t move,” he tells me.

I don’t have much of a choice honestly; I can barely keep my eyes open as is. “Mother fuck!” I scream when I feel a harsh, hot, stream of water hit my wound. Irrigation. There’s cursing in muffled voices above me and a pretty blond stuffs a dish cloth in my mouth before the water hits again and my muscles go stiff as I scream into the rag.

***

Next time I wake up I’m in the back of a car driven by that blond from the kitchen. I groan and almost throw up, but keep it together.

“You’re awake,” the woman notes as her eyes meet mine through her rear-view mirror. “Good, we should be there any minute now.”

“Where?”

“My place.”

“I’m supposed to stay at the club.”

The woman laughs. “Yeah, well, that’s not going to happen. Rossi isn’t exactly fond of having stabbing victims hanging out and bleeding all over his floors. Scares off the customers and all.”

“My boss is…”

“Aaron Hotchner, I know. He told me you were going to be around the club and that I should keep an eye on you.”

“Great,” I mutter. I only vaguely remember Hotch mentioning a dancer that could get me anything I needed at the club, but that’s not what this feels like at the moment. What it feels like is my new boss set up some cocktail waitress to babysit my ass and the worst part is...turns out I needed it!

“When I saw you go off with The Reaper I knew something bad was going down.” I give a confused look at the moniker but don’t get a chance to ask as my stomach twists with the turning of the car and she continues. “Anyway I’ll call Hotch and let him know where you are, don’t worry,”

“Perfect.” Can’t imagine how fast he’s gonna fire me after he hears about this.

“I’m Lila Archer, by the way. I know Hotch, he’s helped me out a few times.”

“But you…” I grab the seat from pain as I cough some, “you, uh, work for Rossi?”

“At his club, sure.” The blond pulls up to a little house, stops the car, and then turns back to me with a smile. “He pays the best and a girl’s gotta pay the rent, doesn’t she?”

I close my eyes to prevent dizziness as I slowly sit up. “Whatever you say.”

“Thing’s aren’t simple in life, Spence, especially not in this town.”

The nickname catches me so off guard I don’t reply. I stay mute as she gets out and goes to help me get from the car to inside her home. Once inside though I insist on getting myself to her couch to lay on as she calls Hotch’s office and tells Garcia that I’m with her. She lies and tells Garcia everything’s fine. When done she goes to stand over me. “How’s it feel to survive The Reaper?”

“Excuse me?”

She goes to sit on the armrest nearest my head. If I wanted I could look right up her shirt. “Officer Foyet,” she clarifies with a smile and leans over me some so that now I’m thinking she wants me to look up her shirt. “On the streets he’s known as The Reaper.”

“I can imagine why.”

A tiny bell ring of a laugh escapes the blond beauty’s lips before she moves on. “Need something for the pain?”

“I’ll be fine,” I go to shift and the pain rips through me like lightening. “Well…uh…maybe some brandy if you have it.”

“I do,” Lila stands up and goes to fix my drink before returning. “Anything else, Spence?” As she asks she comes around to kneel before me on the couch, passing the glass of liquor to me. “Man who survives a stabbing ought to have anything he desires.”

What I desire is to sit like a normal person, but that doesn’t happen. I have to stretch out not to pinch and pull awkwardly at the stitching of my gash as I get up to take the glass from Lila and sip from it. I take a larger than normal amount into my mouth and hold it there about before swallowing and enjoying the burn. “What are you doing?” I ask as Lila goes to remove my Chucks revealing the mismatched socks I’m wearing…I always lose one of each pair in the laundry somehow so stopped bothering to try and match them.

“Helping you get comfortable,” Lila answers simply before smiling up at me. “Come on, Spence, relax. Live a little, even.”

I can’t help but give a small laugh. “I’ve been in this town less then a week and feel like I’ve lived a decade.”

“They say you haven’t really lived in this town until you’ve had one of it’s women,” she counters.

I take another sip of brandy and laugh again until she goes for the belt on my pants. “You don’t need to do that,” I tell her as I place a hand over hers, “and I don’t think I’d, uh, be up for it. I mean, uh…I…I would, literally, but not…you know…” I give an awkward smile unsure how to dig myself out of the verbal hole I’ve dug.

“I know,” Lila smiles before going to undo my belt and fly anyway, “but you got blood all over your pants and, unless you want them ruined, I should wash them before the blood dries and sinks into the fabric.”

“Oh.” It sounded like a load of crock but I haven’t the will to argue over it at the moment. And what man in his right mind argues to keep his clothes on in front of a beautiful woman? I wince as I lift my hips just enough for her to slip the pants off.

“Nice boxers,” she comments with a wink as she stands up before adding. “Gimme your shirt, I’ll wash that too.”

I obey.

“I’ll be right back,” she tells me before walking out of the room leaving me in nothing but my boxers. Not exactly the way I saw this day playing out, that’s for sure. Thank god her house is heated.

I take the alone time to examine the bandages covering my chest and the bloodied one over my stomach. The rest of me is already turning shades of black, blue, green, and yellow and I can feel the dried blood caking in my hair. I start to pull of the dark red bandage over my wound when I hear her walking back in. “I need to change this bandage,” I mutter to myself, or her, or both.

Lila doesn’t say a word, just heads back out only to return a moment later with what looks like a home made first aid kit and a bottle of vodka. She goes to kneel at my feet like before. “I can do it.”

“You don’t have to.”

“No, I don’t,” Lila agree before taking my hands in hers and setting them to my sides before going to the bandage, “but I can and I will.” She begins to gently pull the current bandage off. “It’s not like it’s my first time playing nurse, Dr Reid.” She smirks up at me as she tugs the last bit of the bandage off. To get the excess blood off she pours vodka straight from the bottle over the area before opening gauze and dabbing much of my sore skin dry.

“I, uh, don’t think it’s bleeding anymore,” I comment. Obviously a good sign.

“It isn’t,” Lila confirms as she places a new bandage over the wound, covering the area with tape. Then she presses her lips over the area.

I give a soft groan as a shot of pain mixes with the pleasure. I look down, see the near perfect imprint of red lips on the white tape, and then smile as I look into the blond’s eyes. Maybe I’d been in too much pain, or focusing too much of just surviving, but now I can see that devious little glint in her eyes. She wasn’t hardened by the city like Ms Prentiss seemed to be but she wasn’t some fresh faced damsel either. Still… “I’m not sure I, uh, have the energy or strength to…you know…do anything.”

“Who said you had to do anything, Spencer?”

***///***

 _"The night is hot as hell. I'm in a lousy room in a lousy part of a lousy town. I'm staring at a goddess, she's telling me she wants me. I'm not going to waste one more second wondering how I've gotten so lucky...She smells like angels oughta smell. The perfect woman. The goddess." ~ Marv, Sin City_


	10. Night Moves

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is from Hotch's POV

  
_"She tried to sit in my lap while I was standing up." ~ Philip Marlowe, The Big Sleep_

***///***

When we get back to the office Prentiss tells Morgan and I more…but not everything. I don’t even have to wonder if she’s holding things back, I know she is. She does confess some, enough to keep us satisfied that she's not actively working against the case at the moment. She tells us how she met Rossi, how he got her a better job than the one she was working, how he'd treated her well and wasn't abusive, and how her roommate slipped her claws in at just that moment when Rossi seemed to consider something new to play with. We asked her about how she got on with Jordan and she admitted that they didn’t always but that they were roommates and living with someone does that…makes you fight.

“We heard you fought like cats,” Morgan states just a little too pleased to say it in my book.

Prentiss finished lighting the cigarette I know my office will still smell like long after it’s out. “Yeah, but we made up like dogs.”

I’m not even sure what that would mean when it involves two women but Morgan seems to as he laughs some. Frustrated at these little games everyone seems to know how to play but me I snap. “Why shouldn’t I just look at you for this? You two are prone to fighting, she steals your man, probably your meal ticket in this town, so maybe you girls get to fighting one night and it goes too far?” I suggest as if cramming the words in places they don’t belong – my head, her throat. “You call upon me to cover your tracks. So later, when I find the proof, all you have to do is bat those long, pretty, lashes of yours and point out that the killer of someone wouldn’t hire a private investigator to find them. That it?”

“You think I have long, pretty, lashes?” Prentiss asks with a soft smile as if it’s the only thing she heard in all I said.

Even Morgan knows not to laugh now, he just shakes his head to hide the smile. “Girl, you’re burying yourself faster with each word.”

Prentiss sighs as if annoyed with the both us before taking a deep drag and blowing the smoke out as she speaks. “I can’t give you any evidence or an alibi that clears me and there isn’t a reason for you to just cross me off your suspect list.” Her eyes glance at Morgan’s a moment, then snap to mine. “But the more time you spend examining my every move and my past the less time you spend looking for Jordan. I’m paying you to find my roommate, Hotchner, not learn the ins and outs of my personal affairs.”

“Your personal affairs could have something to do with why your roommate went missing.”

“No, _her_ personal affairs might be why she went missing.”

I glare so Morgan cuts in. “So then tell us about them. We know she got busy with you and Rossi, anyone else?”

“Well she was a busy girl,” Prentiss smirks out before letting her lips and breath spark the paper of her cigarette once more and giving an answer. "But no, not that I’m aware of. Once she hooked up with Rossi she was set so there was no reason to play around.”

“What about Rossi?” I finally get my voice back. “I’ve never known him not to play around.”

“He might’ve, I don’t know, I just know that, if he did, it wasn’t with me.” Prentiss lets out the last bits of smoke she can suck up before putting her cig out.

“He had a blond in his lap when the kid and I spoke to him,” Morgan states with a smile. “Claimed she was his girlfriend.”

“Guess that answers your question,” Prentiss smiles. “Maybe you should be looking into the blond, not me.”

“She didn’t strike me as the killing type.”

“What? Too sweet and delicate?”

“Too dumb.” Morgan smiles wide as Prentiss gives a laugh and even I smile a little. “And on that note, I’m out for the night. I got work tomorrow and need my eight hours.”

I look to Morgan, still with a faint smile, and give a nod. “Have a good night, Derek, and keep Foyet on your radar if you can.”

“Always do,” Morgan heads out of my office with myself and Prentiss following behind. He smiles wide and playful at Garcia. “You need a ride home, Beautiful?”

Garcia taps her hot pink pen to her bright red lips as if thinking before looking up to me. “Still need me, Boss?”

“No, Garcia, I’m fine,” I smile at her a bit more. “And it’s always nice to have a police escort if you can get it.”

My secretary happily slides her chair out from behind the desk and pops out of it. “Well then, Boss Man, I’m taking Morgan here up on his offer and heading out with an officer and a gentleman on my arm.”

Morgan’s already got her coat at the ready for her and in a matter of moments my two friends are set and off for the night.

It isn’t long before Prentiss starts to slowly get up from the spot she’s taken up on in the outer office couch as well. “I’m out of here too.”

I make two swift, wide, steps from my office where I'd been straightening up to her. “No, you aren’t.” I take an extra step to the door in case she thinks she can just go past me.

“I’m exhausted.”

“The last time you left this office you nearly got yourself killed.”

“I’ll try harder not to do that this time,” she smirks at me.

I shake my head. “Not good enough.”

“You don’t trust me?”

“No.”

She smiles a little as she makes a curtain of her hair before flipping it back a touch to look at me. “Then come with me.”

“Where?” Somewhere in the back of my head I sense some kind of trap, but what kind I’m not yet sure.

“To my hotel,” she answers with a single click of a heeled step toward me. “It’s really the only way you can be sure, isn’t it? …Unless you happen to have a pair of handcuffs laying around that I’m not aware of?” Her brow joins her voice in a tease.

“I don’t.” I wish I did, or that I at least inquired further about the pair Garcia claimed to have, but I don’t and I didn't. “But if I go with you anywhere that doesn’t mean anything.”

“Not a thing?”

“Except that I don’t trust you.”

“You have trust issues,” she smiles up at me as she reaches for my tie, fiddling with its straightness as if my girlfriend or wife.

“You have honesty issues.”

“Touché.” She gives my tie a hard tug before slipping around me to grab her coat and slip it on. “So let’s just curb one another’s issues by sticking together for the night, shall we? And, should anyone try to kill either of us, at least one will be there to save the other.”

***

I knew she’d been trying to tease me into this predicament, I just didn’t know how easily I’d actually fall for it. Yet here I am at one of the rooms at the crummy _Ambassador Motel_ with my client. I let her into the miniature bathroom first, confident that all the burglars who’ve climbed in the windows and patrons who've climbed out of them to avoid the bill have been enough to get the owners of the fine establishment to paint and nail each and every window shut…that she won’t be able to get out even if she wanted to.

The room itself is a single room tinier than my office with a double bed covered in a bedspread that I wouldn’t let my bare skin touch if my life depended on it. There’s a black and white TV atop a dresser that’s falling apart, two bedside tables, a fan-lamp on the ceiling and two other small lamps by each side of the bed. The whole place stuffed with heated old air and everything looks and feels like it has a layer of filth over it so that my skin almost itches. I hear the water in the bathroom stop and come to attention as the door opens.

I see only leg first, it’s long and lean with just enough muscle to tell you the girl’s in glorious shape. In its uncovered form it’s also a little paler than I’d thought it would be. Not unhealthy in color, but paler. Just when I think that the leg’s going to go on forever dingy cloth appears acting as the hem of some particularly nasty cotton dress. “I still don’t see why we couldn’t drop by my place to pick some things up,” Prentiss clearly hasn’t given up the argument started in my car. “Not like Foyet’s moved in there or anything.”

“There could be someone sitting on the house, waiting for you,” I point out as I turn focus to the TV in attempts to give her some form of privacy.

“And we couldn’t stop by your place because…?”

I try not to smile. “It’s my place.”

“What is it with men and their places?”

“Sorry?” my head turns to her on instinct and at once I’m both grateful and regretful.

Prentiss stands in front of a cracked full-length mirror just outside the bathroom combing her fingers through her long hair in nothing but that off-white towel. She reminds me off those early teen dreams I had where the beautiful girl would fade into nothingness just as she got close enough to touch…early sex dreams, ones before there's any real context to be had, were always the most disappointing. But I've had years of context now and this wasn’t a dream anymore. “Rossi was the same way, always bringing me to a vacation home or penthouse in the city, but never his actual home,” Emily explains before finally looking over at me and smiling seeing me look at her. “Maybe a nice hotel room once in a while.”

I look away, go to pull off my jacket and hang it over the dresser, cross at being compared to some mobster she used to fuck. “I’m not Rossi.”

“No,” she gives a laugh and a change in shadows tells me she’s turned her attention back to the mirror. “Your choice in hotel is god awful.”

“I’m not here to impress you, Ms Prentiss, I’m here to keep you safe.”

Hair straightened and untangled she heads over to me with a seductive smile. “How are you going to do that, Mr Hotchner? Will you keep me close?”

“If I have to.”

“How close?” The woman asks finally within range to reach out for me, take my arm, and attempt to fully catch my eye.

I take a step back, out of her reach once again, as I look her over. Without the aggressively feminine-cut suit and heels that’d probably pierce skin in a frenzy she appears very different. She’s not fragile, not by a long shot, but something tells me she could still break if played with too much. Hair too dark, almost black wet, making skin look all the paler she’s like some strange china doll that little girls would own but never get to touch. “You should get dressed,” I mumble as I do my best to slip past her. “I’m going to prepare for bed.”

It’s only once in the bathroom I let my heart race free. I make due getting ready to sleep with what we bought at a local store – toothbrushes, tube of toothpaste, a straightedge that I need to remember to pack before Prentiss can (I'd rather she not have the opportunity to use my shaving utensils as weapons in the future). I lose my belt, shoes, socks, and button-down shirt, folding each one and stacking them in a pile to place with my jacket. Nightly rituals done the best they can be given the circumstances and I step back out into the room.

“You’re not seriously going to sleep in your suit pants, are you?” The woman’s question comes out disapproving from the bed.

“Where’s my jacket?” I ask as I set the rest of my clothes atop the dresser where my jacket should be.

“I have it.”

I turn to her voice and, for a long time, my eyes and brain seem to disconnect with the rest of me. Emily Prentiss sits on the bed with legs bent just a touch at the knee as they stretch out before her and hands running over the top of the headboard as if it were the most natural position in the world. She swims in my jacket, red fingernails poking out from the arms to tap the headboard as the lapels cover all but an inch wide strip of blushed skin running down from her neck to the tops of black lace. The hem stops just before her panties do.

“Hope you don’t mind,” she says as she seems to examine her new nighttime outfit, pulling at the fabric to reveal here and hide there. “I just can’t stand sleeping in a slip or nightgown. Normally I’d sleep in just the panties but wasn’t sure if you’d be up for that, so to speak.”

“You can’t sleep in my jacket.” It’s not the first thought that comes into my head, just the first one I feel is appropriate to verbalize.

“Oh, okay then.” Emily begins tuck her arms into the sleeves and slip them back out as she removes the jacket.

“Don’t.”

She pauses then sighs with a smile. “You can’t have it both ways, Mr. Hotchner.”

I sort of want to smack her just to get her to knock it off and act right. I know she’s playing with me and, for some reason, I’m making a perfect toy of myself and we both know it…but she’s the only one enjoying it. “Look, just…” I sigh as I pull my undershirt up over my head as I head towards her, “wear this, okay?”

Prentiss stands, lets the jacket fall off completely anyway, and when she sees me look down as I stuff the shirt into her hands she laughs a little. “God, are you uptight.”

“Why’s that?” I finally snap, looking, glaring, straight into her eyes that I feel laugh at me even after the woman stops. “Because I don’t want to fuck you?”

“No,” she defiantly holds my gaze like she had in the supply closet of _The Stallion_. “Because you want desperately to fuck me but won’t. That’s another difference between you and Rossi. Rossi always know what he wants and goes for it, damn the consequences.”

“I’m not Rossi,” I growl out.

“No you’re some washed up ex-cop who’s so uptight he doesn’t even know what to do with a willing woman even when she’s half-naked on a bed,” she snipes back as she finally throws my shirt on her.

“Go to bed.”

“I’m not some disobedient little girl,” Emily points out still wanting to fight. “I’m your employer, don’t forget that.”

I’ve already begun to pack up my emotions however, tuck them away so that I can pull them out when they'll realyl be of benefit on the case. I don’t want to argue or fight or tussle with the woman. Not because she’s my employer or even that I’m afraid things will go to far, but because I’m too tired. Because I have to consider a million different things in my efforts to find Jordan Todd and none of it will be covered in my fighting with Prentiss. I decide a different tactic. “Do what you want then, I’m going to bed.” I head away from her and the bed.

“Where are you going?”

“To sleep by the door,” this time it’s my turn to smirk, to play with someone, with her. “Just in case you get any ideas about slipping out.”

***

I hear the shower running in the room next to me and keep my eyes closed for another moment or two before finally deciding to let them lift slowly. My neck and back are stiff as I crawl my way up off the floor with a groan. Hand rubbing at my neck I begin to walk slowly towards my pile of clothes to dress. My jacket and undershirt have joined the pile and I put the undershirt on first. It smells different, there’s a hint of Emily’s presence in the fabric that, somehow, makes it smell better. I find the same holds true for my jacket.

The shower goes off and I turn towards the drawn curtains to fix my belt. “Garcia called,” Emily announces her exit from the bathroom with a half-yawn. “She said Morgan was going to keep an eye on Foyet while at work and that she hasn’t heard from Reid.”

“Good,” I mutter doing my best to fight the urge to turn around a watch the porcelain Prentiss work her fingers through her hair like she had the night before.

“She seemed worried about Reid not checking in.”

I smile a little as I pull my socks and then slip my shoes on. “Garcia’s like that. I’m sure Reid is just busy watching that ne’er-do-well ex of yours.” Despite the sore muscles from strange sleeping arrangements I’m in a much better mood this morning that usual. Maybe it the lack of the usual hangover? Or maybe it’s that new smell my clothes seem to have?

Prentiss laughs a little. “I thought we weren’t allowed to talk about him?”

“Just you.”

“Just me?”

I nod as I enjoy a private smile. “Are you decent?”

“Never.” Her laugh covers mine before she adds. “But I’m not nude so you won’t see much of anything if you turn around.”

I turn and she’s honest. She’s clipping her stockings back in place under her skirt with just a bra for her top. I do my best not to watch her like some school-boy getting a free peek at the girl next door but it proves difficult this early in the morning. “Did you sleep well?”

“All alone on a lumpy bed with a man guarding my door? Slept like a guilty man in Alcatraz.”

I give a small laugh. “The guilty actually tend to sleep better than the innocent. Especially in prison.”

She gives me a sly smile. “I’ll keep that in mind. How about you though, Mr. Hotchner, did you sleep well?”

“Like the innocent,” I joke as I try to rub out the soreness in one of my shoulders.

She laughs a touch more as she goes to pull her top on, the top that’s little more than a woman's suit jacket, and then head over to me. “Care for a massage?” She must see my eyes narrow warily because she raises her hands a little. “Just a massage, don’t worry, no funny business, I promise. Now sit at the edge of the bed, okay?”

If she’d said lay, lay on the bed, I wouldn’t have but she said sit so I decide to go along. I sit on the end of the bed and use my arms to brace myself so I can relax back a touch. Even when I feel the bed shift, hear it creak, under Emily as she crawls and positions herself behind me, I stay relaxed. “You can relax against me,” she says softly, her legs going around mine. “I’m tougher than I look, I won’t break, don’t worry.”

I still don’t lean back on her, but I do relax by leaning forward. Her hands are soft, warmer than I’d thought they would be, and skilled. God are they skilled as she applies just the right amount of pressure to just the right spots causing muscles once too tense to move to melt under her touch.

She must feel it too as she moves just a little closer and works her hands deeper beneath tissue and into muscle. “Feel good?” she asks with a touch of huskiness that comes with being in the middle of physical exertion.

“Very.” My voice is husky for a slightly different reason, but I ignore that in favor of just enjoying the relaxation her hands are providing me.

Her knuckles dig hard enough into a knot that I give a small grunt before I feel the tension start to loosen and then unravel. I can feel myself going to puddles under her touch and, right now, I'm more than happy to let it happen.

***

I don’t remember exactly when I drifted back to sleep but it’s dusk when the harsh ringing of the phone yanks me from pleasant dreams where the girls don’t turn to smoke when I touch them. The bedside light to my right turns on and someone picks up the phone before I can even situate myself.

“Hello?” Emily’s voice answers softly, as if worried she might wake me if any louder. “Hey Garcia, what’s up? What? Hold…Garcia just…calm down, okay?” I’m up, off the bed, and fixing my suit as I signal for the phone in under a minute. “G-Garcia hold on I…I got Hotch here,” Emily does her best to pull the phone from her ear and put it into my hand without missing a frantic word.

“Garcia, calm down,” I instruct firmly, but gently…this isn’t the first time my secretary’s called all in a tizzy over something.

“Oh, Hotch, it’s poor Dr. Reid,” the usually chipper women speaks in a pout.

“What about him?”

“Lila just called and said he’s been hurt,” she starts to ramble in that way that means she’s trying to hold it together even though she wants to cry. “She said he should be fine and all but, oh, Hotch she said Foyet roughed him up…that he stabbed him.”

I’m not all that surprised to be honest. Reid’s new to this and even knowing to avoid someone like Foyet he might not know how…Foyet’s always been a determined one when he wanted to be so if the cop set his sights on Reid for some reason he’d find a way to get to him. I’m even less surprised by the stabbing since Foyet always had a thing for knives, last I was aware he carried two and kept another in his desk. “Where is Reid now?”

“Lila said she was going to keep him at her place until…well…I’m not really sure actually.”

“Then I’m sure he’ll be just fine, Garcia, Lila should be able to take good care of him.” I do my best not to laugh as Emily playfully wiggles her eyebrows some at my words. “I’ll have Morgan pick him up tomorrow.”

“Not with Foyet?!” My secretary reaches a near high-pitch panic requiring me to pull my ear from the receiver a moment.

“No, Garcia, before he gets to work, he can drop Reid off at the office where you care for the good doctor until your heart’s content.”

“Okay then,” Garcia seems satisfied enough to let it go in favor of something else that’s on her mind. “So why is it that you’re in our client’s hotel room, hmmm?”

I turn from Emily now so I can hide the potential redness in my face as I feel it heat up. “I wanted to be sure she didn’t pull another vanishing act so stayed with her.”

“The whole night?”

“Yes.”

“In the same bed?” I imagine her shifting excitedly in her chair as she asks. For some reason she’s the only person I’ve ever allowed to really get away with asking personal, romantic, questions about me…I don’t even give Morgan that privilege most times.

“No, Garcia, I stayed on the floor last night and this morning, afternoon, I got the bed and…” I turn back to Emily who simply shrugs with a smile. “Actually I don’t know what she did but she’s in one piece and still here so I’ll assume she didn’t get into too much trouble.”

There’s a long period of silence, Garcia’s thinking, wondering if I’m being straight with her or not, before deciding I must be (or that I’m not going to change my story at least). “So you two care to step out into the rest of the world and come into the office some time today?”

“Maybe for a little while but I want to make a night run to Prentiss’ place so she can grab some of her things.”

“Okie dokie, Boss Man,” Garica replies, content with the information she’s gathered on me and our operations for the moment. “You two take care though, okay? I’ve had enough of a scare for one case already, I don’t want any more on account of you two.”

“Don’t worry, Garcia, I’m always careful.”

“And Prentiss?”

“Prentiss is with me,” I smile. “I’ll keep her safe.”

The moment I exchange final goodbyes and hang up Emily speaks. “Lucky me.” I turn to give her a curious look and she adds. “I hired a private investigator and get my own personal bodyguard as a bonus.” She winks, then laughs softly, lightly.

I join her, unable to help myself.

***///***

 _"He couldn't find a prayer in the Bible." ~ Whit Sterling, Out of the Past_


	11. I Love Trouble

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is from Foyet's POV

  
_"People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they are doing." ~ Dale Carnegie_

***///***

There’s a slight chill in the air outside _The Stallion_ that I don’t remember the evening having when I came in. I pull out a cigarette from my breast pocket and light up before digging into the pocket I stuffed the pistol the good Dr Buddy Holly had. Open the cartridge, check the bullet count, examine the state of the gun, and give a laugh. Fully loaded and recently cleaned…not Reid’s gun. The little geek wouldn’t keep his gun so meticulously well maintained, he wouldn’t even know how, but Hotchner would.

I stick the gun back into my pocket and ponder for a moment as paper turns to ash on my lips from the cig before hearing noises coming out the alley where I left the geek. I listen carefully, letting the echoes tell me that it’s a woman from inside the club coming to help him and that the doctor’s a little pissy at getting his ass owned. The back door opens and shuts a few times, muffled voices argue and order one another, and then the door shuts one last time before it goes silent. I pull the cigarette from my mouth to let fresh air in my lungs for a bit as I think of who could’ve come to Reid’s rescue so quickly; it’s hard to narrow, down but probably someone friendly with Hotch meaning my pain-in-the-ass former partner will be informed as to what I did soon enough. Not that I care, I’d just rather not be taken by surprise. Surprises are the type of things that are better to give than receive.

I tuck the cigarette back into my mouth as I debate my next move, but it isn’t until I stick my hands in my pockets for a little warmth that it comes to me. I’m smiling at my own decision as I hear a car take off from around the corner (Reid and his princess in heels?) and, by the time I reach my own car, I’ve got a nice little chuckle going. It grows as I start the engine and head off down the road. I know I have to be patient though, if I set things in motion too early it’s never going to work so, to slow myself down some, I stop by headquarters…nothing slows the turning of the world quite like paperwork. I finish what’s due, I even get a little ahead, and then call JJ to check in and let her know I’m good, just busy, before heading back on the road. I don’t stop until find a payphone that’s still working on the outskirts of town.

I dial, wait, then speak in my best false Southern twang. “Hiya, this Private Investigator Aaron Hotchner’s number?”

“It most certainly is and you’re speaking to Penelope Garcia. Not the man in charge, but the woman who runs things. Now how may I help you?” Despite surface chipperness the voice is a little off, there’s an undercurrent of worry to it that I swear I can smell…Ms. Penelope Garcia must’ve heard about what happened to Hotch’s little friend. I wonder if she knows I'm the one who did it?

“Well I found a gun in an alley behind a club I think I saw Mr. Hotchner at earlier. Just thought, maybe, it might be his or somethin’.” It’s a terrible lie loosely thrown together that a wary person would punch a hole right through but…

“Oh my, really?!”

“Yes Ma’am. Should, I…” pause for dramatic effect, “should I drop it off maybe? I’d hate for it to get into the wrong hands and all.”

“Why, yes, that’d be lovely, thank you,” she seems relieved that such kind, upstanding, people exist in this lonely and cruel world. “Do you know where our offices are Mr…oh, I’m sorry, I’ve completely forgotten to ask your name.”

“Dewey” the name slips right out my mouth. “Dewey Williams. And, yes, Ms. Garcia, I know where ya’ll are located. Think everyone does,” I give a soft, gentle, laugh to lull the woman into joining me in on it. “Is Mr Hotchner there? I’ll head over right now.”

“No, he isn’t,” the frown touches her voice, but she presses on like a brave little soldier. “But you can come in anyway, Mr Williams, don’t worry.”

“Ya sure?”

“I’m sure. I’ll stay open just for you.”

“Well alright then Ms. Garcia, I’ll see ya soon.”

“See you later alligator.”

“In awhile crocodile.” I hang up, smiling, with Garcia still giggling on the other line. I always wondered what was with Morgan always chatting her up on the phone, flirting and calling her little pet names, now I sort of get it. She seems like fun, the type of girl to give great responses.

***

I give just two knocks from out in the hall before Hotchner’s happy little secretary calls out for me to come on in. I open the door slowly, peek around to ensure no one else is there, before stepping in and closing the door behind me. “So this is where my old partner set up shop? It’s a lot nicer than I thought it’d be,” I smirk as I watch the woman seem to be suddenly struck with some sort of paralysis. “But then I’m sure that’s thanks to the woman who runs things, not the man in charge, am I right?”

That paralysis is still working its magic as I let myself really take the woman in. She’s actually rather pleasant to look at all soft and rounded like she is. I always expected Hotch to hire of some stuck-up bitch with hawk-eyes and no real femininity to speak of, someone neither he or any other man would fuck if their life depended on it. But this Penelope…she’s not half bad really. Even as her ruby red lips start to quiver some and her mouth opens and closes like a fish out of water she looks sweet.

“Is it something I said?” I’m not going to hurt her, at least I’m not planning to. That’s not the point of this visit, I just want to play a little and see what happens. Test the waters, as it were.

“Reap…uh…” she voice is starting to return, but it’s working faster than her brain. “F-O…Off-Officer Foy-Foyet. How, um…How may I...help you? Hotch should be back shortly.” The last bit I can tell is her attempts at a safety measure - _Don't try anything Mr Bad-Cop, my boss could come in and stop you at any minute!_.

I push myself from the wall and slink towards her desk. “Now Ms. Garcia, it’s unwise to lie to an officer of the law. We both know very well that Hotchner’s gone for the night and that you’re here all alone.”

“How may I help you?”

I smile some as I go to sit on the edge of her desk and pull the gun Dr. Genius had on him and set it in front of the secretary. She immediately pulls back which gives me a tickle. I want another so spin the gun so the barrel points right at her and watch as all her natural color seems to fade away. “Is this Hotch’s gun?”

“You were Dewey?”

“I can lie to you, you just can’t lie to me,” I explain before tapping the metal of the weapon causing the woman to jump a little.

“No, it’s mine.” She’s lying. She’s petrified of the thing, no way it’s hers.

But it benefits me to play along. “Really? And you gave it to someone else?”

“I…um…” she’s not quite sure how to answer me. I’m guessing it’s more because she doesn’t want the nerd hurt any more than he already is. “Well…Why do you want to know?”

“Maybe because it was pulled on me this evening and I’d like to know where it came from.” I then go to lean across the desk some and drop my voice into a growl. “Or maybe because I’m just fucking curious. Either way I still want an answer.” The pleasantly plump woman stays mum, sucking her bottom lip a little in increasing nerves, so I hop off the desk, go around, and plant myself, hunched slightly, in her face. “By the way, what was that you were going to call me earlier? Reap…?”

“I, um…plead the fifth?”

I reach out to her chair as she tries to pull away, too bad for her I’m faster. I pull her right back and all the closer by the arms of her chair. “You’re not in a court, Penelope, and to use that you’d need to be incriminating yourself. Now come on, be a good girl and play along…” I slacken the muscles in my face some to soften my look like I usually do with JJ. “Please? For me.”

“Th-The Reaper,” she says so softly I have to watch her lips to be sure the words aren’t just in my head.

I let my body shake some as I smile. “Gives you the shivers just saying it, doesn’t it?”

“Are…Are you going to hurt me?” Her eyes are starting to water up.

“No,” I reply as if insulted by the suggestion before standing upright once more. “But I am going to take you down to the station.”

“What? Why?” Confusion breaks through the fear.

“The gun you claim is yours was used in the commission of a crime.”

“Crime? What crime?” There's a whiff of indignation now.

“Assault on an officer? Attempted murder of an officer? I don’t know but we’ll think of something.”

“Well I’m not going anywhere with you.”

I nearly laugh at her thinking she has a choice. “Well I could always just bend you over the desk and force the cuffs on you, but I’m not sure you’d really like that.” Then again, I rather would, even the thought gives me a little chuckle. “Oh hell, you convinced me.”

The secretary’s eyes go wide and, if I wasn’t faster and far stronger, she’d have bolted for the inner office and locked herself in there I’m sure. But I am faster and I am stronger and I’ve got her wrists pinned behind her with one hand and the other hand pinning her by the neck to her desk so that she’s looking straight down the barrel of that pistol. “Please,” she lets out in a sob as her eyes shut tight and she does her best to wiggle away from me.

“Please?” I question as I put enough of my muscle on her that there’s no risk of her going anywhere even as I let go of her neck to get my cuffs off my belt. As I slip Quaint Cove’s finest silver bracelets on her wrists I lean over her so my lips go to her ear. “Don’t worry, Baby Girl, you play nice and so will I. Sound like a deal?”

She says nothing, just turns her head away from me the best she can and chokes on another sob.

***

There’s not a peep from Ms. Penelope Garcia the whole ride to the station. Not when I tease about how my girl, JJ, might get jealous with how close we were in the office, not when I call in for a search to get started on Hotchner’s office, and not when I ask her if she and Morgan ever played with his cuffs like we had. That question does get a reaction though, a glare. Apparently she doesn’t have as much of a sense of humor as I first thought.

I stick her in an interrogation room and leave her there, cuffed to the table, a moment or two just to let the tension build a little. I’m not really expecting to get many answers, in fact I’m surprised she hasn’t already pulled the lawyer card, but if I can it’ll be a nice bonus. A bonus to general fun I'm having and the the message I’m sending Hotch…I can get to your people and I can get away with it. Anytime and anywhere.

By the time I step back into the interrogation room Garcia’s leg is shaking a little as it’s crossed over the other one. “You…you can’t hold me here forever.” Brave little soldier.

I smile over at her as I shut the door behind me. “Well that would be true if you were a suspect but, thinking on it, I don’t think that gun was yours,” I head over to the other side of the table. “I think it was Hotchner’s and that makes you a material witness.”

“And?”

“And I can hold them indefinitely,” I relax back in the chair a little.

Garcia’s leg keeps going, though she smiles a little. “If I’m just a witness then why am I still in cuffs?”

I smile back, “Because you’re hostile.”

Her breath rushes out in an air of disbelief, which seems to give her some girl-balls. “You know Morgan’s going to kick your ass when he finds out about this.”

“So you are his girl, huh?” I know she’s not, even if they’d fooled around Morgan’s a field player. Never seen him with the same girl twice.

“We’re just friends.”

“Really?” I try for an in. “Yeah, I guess he prefers the Twiggys, huh?”

“I couldn’t say.”

“You haven’t noticed?” I give her an almost sympathetic look. “Most the ones I’ve seen him with rival the models in the magazines. Tall, busty…thin.”

The woman gives me an almost confused look before smiling. “Real women have curves.” She then sighs as if terribly disappointed. “If the best you have is that Morgan dates skinny girls, and shouldn’t I be self-conscious because I’m not one of those types, then you don’t have much.”

I smile even though that didn’t go my way…sometimes that’s all you can do. Smile and poke around for another angle. “So how’d you come to work for Hotchner?”

“I answered an ad.”

“No you didn’t.”

“Well then how did I come to work for Hotchner, Foyet?”

“Officer Foyet," I correct sternly before smiling once more. "And I don’t know, Ms. Garcia, but I know he isn’t about to put an ad in the paper for employees. Hotchner needs to know he can trust someone even before he works with them.”

She nods a little and opens her mouth to speak but a ruckus outside the room stops her. Someone’s near tearing apart the bullpen and I bet even money it’s Morgan. Garcia finds her voice when she hears Morgan’s demanding to see her. “He sounds awfully mad.” And she sounds awfully delighted that he is.

“He usually does in my experience.” I reply coolly.

“Aren’t you scared?”

I start to laugh some (of all the times I've asked others some variation of that, I'm rarely asked it myself...that I am now amuses) before shaking my head. “His bark is worse than his bite.” I suspect he’ll bite some, but that’s fine. Maybe Morgan’ll give me a little bonus in getting himself in trouble with the captain.

The door flies open and Morgan gives me just want I want and more. Three broad steps and he’s got me out of the chair and up against the wall by my shirt. “You son of a bitch!” he’s so pissed it nearly comes out all in one word as he glares, his face an inch from mine.

“Why Derek, you seem upset, what’s the matter?” I play innocent with a sweet smile.

Morgan pulls me from the wall only to slam me back into it hard enough there’s no air to breath, then he tosses me to the floor. When he goes to charge me again I tip the chair with my feet so that it trips him and he falls to the floor as I roll out of the way. All that he gets out now is a muffled curse. I swing out with an elbow, making contact with the center of his back.

I go to propel myself back up, but Morgan twists to grab hold of my collar and soon enough we’re both just a tangle of flying limbs making contact wherever we can. Garcia gives yells, calls for help, from where she’s stuck to the table thanks to my cuffs.

Help, if that’s what you’d call it, comes in the form of five other officers who first swarm, then work to pull us apart. I give up easy, play the victim as I let a nearby hand help me up while the other four guys go to hold Morgan in check.

“What the hell is going on?!” Captain Hawks finally roars all fire and brimstone from the doorway.

“I don’t know,” I breath hard and shake my head like I don’t have a clue what just happen. “The crazy bastard just fucking jumped me.”

“Fuck you!” Morgan pushes up against Perrota, Andrus, and two others like they’re actually going to let him have another go at me if he just shows them how much he wants it.

The captain looks between me and Morgan, then glances at the wide-eyed Garcia. “Who’s that?”

“A witness,” I answer.

Morgan answers too. “My friend.”

My answer’s better as the captain sighs. “Morgan, you’re off…whatever case this is all about.”

“The Todd case,” I offer.

“The Todd case,” the captain repeats as if he’d known all along. "Now get the hell out of this station, you're suspended for a week."

"Are you kidding me?" Morgan's anger turns to our boss.

"Wanna make it two?" the captain asks.

Morgan takes all the air he seems able and holds it before looking down. "No, Sir, but I want to bring Ms. Garcia home myself."

"Fine, that can be your last act before the suspension." Captain Hawks turns to me. “Unless you think she’s a flight risk let her go for the night, Foyet.” I nod some and go over to the woman as my boss continues to play at being in charge, sending the other cops out of the room, telling them to get back to work, and all that usual crap that bosses tell those who work under them.

As I bend over Garcia to undo the cuff on her wrist I know Morgan’s watching me with eyes slit in anger. With the captain still watching over us like children I know Morgan’s unlikely to bolt for me. I take advantage of that fact. I take my time, run my fingers over soft skin and pulse-points, and let my body brush Garcia’s when I can. When I glance to see the captain’s distracted, he's about to head out of the room, I give a loud whisper in her ear. “You ever wanna get over that fear of guns you have maybe I’ll let you play with mine sometime.” I chuckle low and dark in her ear, she cringes a little, and Morgan takes a threatening step forward.

The moment she's free to Garcia leaps out the chair and goes to Morgan. She doesn’t cry or anything, but she clings to him like he were the last thing holding her to the Earth in a hurricane. Strange…they don’t even sleep together and they’re that close. …I don’t get it.

“You okay, Pen?” Morgan asks in a gentle voice even as his eyes seem to be trying to tear my limbs off and beat me to death with them.

“Yes, Derek.”

Morgan’s eyes finally leave me and he kisses the top of the woman’s head before going to lead her out of the room. “Let’s get you home.”

Finally left on my own I check myself. No major injuries, maybe some bruises, and a tiny cut on my lip. Not bad. I lick my lips some to collect the blood and set my cuffs back in their proper spot on my belt. The mess of furniture I leave for someone else to clean up as I head out. Fun’s over, might as well head on home.

“Foyet!” Captain Pain-In-My-Ass apparently isn’t done throwing his weight around yet.

I try not to roll my eyes as I head towards his office. “Yes, Sir?” What bullshit orders and lectures would you like to give out now?

“You and Morgan aren’t working out.”

“Really, Sir, cause I thought we were getting along great until he slammed my head into the concrete wall.”

Hawks shoots me a hard look of annoyance, but carries on. “I’m separating you two, giving you both new partners.”

“I’m fine without one.”

“It’s not an option. You’re getting a new partner,” the man seems to pause so he can read my response, but I don’t give him one so he continues. “Her name’s Canardo, Amber Canardo, she’s new to the department out of vice.”

“A girl?” I can’t even hide my disgust at the thought of being partnered with some little bitch out of the naughty-fun squad.

“I look like a girl to you?” A harsh voice comes from the captain’s doorway behind me.

I turn my head a little and the rest of me follows when I see the voice doesn’t really match the image. She’s a bitty little thing with haircut butcher than mine. I smirk some. “No, actually. You look like a boy.”

***///***

 _"I don't like dames." / "Good. Me neither." ~ Kid & Tess Trueheart, Dick Tracy_


	12. Drive a Crooked Road

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is from Reid's POV

  
_"There is, however, a limit at which forbearance ceases to be a virtue." ~ Edmund Burke_

***///***

The skin of my stomach is still sore; it’s red and raw and angry at the stitching of the wound. The black threading stands out against my skin and pokes out at the ends to catch the fabric of my clothing in my movements. It catches as I shower too, one time I nearly pull a stitch free with a jagged nail.

I want to return to the office the next day, but Hotch tells me no. He tells me I can work from Lila’s or home for the next few days. This time I’m left out of the action I’m given a legit task though; to focus on where Jordan Todd might be if she were still alive…and if she were dead. I stay with Lila for a day or two then have her drop me back off at my apartment at _Bright Cliffs_.

I turn the heat way up and stay shirtless to let air get to the wound as I spread maps and markers and pins over the floor. I have a basic knowledge of every mile of Quaint Cove, but a basic knowledge won’t cover it. I’ve only been in a small section; I need someone who’s seen more, who can explain the ins and outs of the terrain and people in more detail. I need someone who lives here.

I call up Garcia. She sends me concerned words, warms wishes, and Emily Prentiss.

From what I can tell nobody knows what to do with her. Hotch doesn’t want her left on her own, he doesn’t trust her, so he’s keeping her busy. Now I’m keeping her busy, I guess, but at least this time it’s clear I’m the one doing the babysitting.

***

She announces her arrival with two sharp knocks and her name.

I finish coloring in a section of medium probability before picking myself off the floor and going to answer the door.

“You always answer your door half-dressed, Dr. Reid?” she questions with a dirty little smirk.

Standing aside I let her in with my reply. “I need to, uh, get air to my wound to aid the healing process.”

“That why the heat’s way up?”

“You ever tried being bare-chested in any temperature below 55?” I let my amusement color my voice.

Emily turns and teases. “Of course.”

I give a small, unsure, laugh as I go to shut and lock the door. “Uh…anyway…” I head over to my colored map, “I’ve been looking over the geography of the city and while I can certainly eliminate hiding locations of a captive or, uh, body, based on population density and proximity to other locales I need a little help in better understanding the, um, culture of each section.”

“Do you ever say anything normal, Dr Reid?”

“Just Reid is fine and, uh, I’m not sure what you’re asking.”

Emily gives a laugh. “Now you know how I feel. You want to know what, exactly?”

“What the people are like at any given location.”

“Okay.”

I can tell she’s still not getting it so I drop to my knees at the map. “Well, for example, the red indicates places of medium probability that Todd is there.”

“Okay.” I hear the rustle of a jacket being removed.

“But I’m going just by how many people live in that location, not by what the people are like. Are these residents nosy? Would they call someone if they thought something was going on?”

I look over as the raven-haired femme drops beside me and decide to just be grateful, today, there’s a silk shirt under the black jacket she's pulled off. “Nosy residents are dead residents anywhere you go in this town,” she mutters. “But…” she leans some to examine the map better, “the swamplands are mostly where you stick the dead, not the living. If Jordan’s alive it’s more likely to be along the tracks.”

“The noise?” I suggest her reasons.

“The noise.” She confirms.

I grab a marker and begin to color the length of the train tracks before frowning. “That’s, uh, way too much land to cover. Even if we stuck to the boundaries of the city itself it’s too much.”

“Hence its popularity,” Emily sighs out. “Lots of hiding space and trains to drown out the sounds of screaming.”

I let out a “Hmmm…” as a hand goes to my wound to scratch.

A strong, but feminine, hand goes to grab my wrist. “Trust me, Reid, you do not want to accidentally pull those threads holding you together.” I smile awkwardly as she lets go and I set my hand on the floor. “You really think Hotch is going to find Jordan?”

“Yes.”

“Why so sure?”

I shrug a little. “Because I, uh…don’t think he’ll stop until he does.” It was a simple reason, but an honest one. Hotchner just didn’t seem the type to give up. Ever.

I return to my markers and map.

“Meanwhile everyone around him is getting their asses handed to them by that fucker, Foyet.”

I’d heard about Garcia getting pulled in and about Morgan fighting him into a suspension. Both wins for the bad guys. Both blows to the case.

“Maybe Hotchner’s not the right guy for this job?”

“Well, like you say, nosy residents are dead residents,” I point out, keeping focus on my map. “Maybe Hotch is just, you know, working in quiet so he doesn’t raise alarms that’ll get Jordan killed?”

“Maybe he’s just a fucking coward? I mean, don’t you think we ought to do more to be finding her?”

Now I look up at her. “Who sent you to Hotch, Emily?”

“Does it matter?”

“Well whoever did clearly thought he was capable of helping you so, maybe, you should trust that person’s opinion and just…stick with us.”

“I think whoever has Jordan is going to kill her and they’re going to frame Rossi for it.”

I stay mute as I process the complete change in topic before asking. “What makes you say that?”

“Gut?” She suggests before letting out a sigh and working her way to rest against my couch. “Lots of people would love to see Rossi fall, try and take over his businesses, and honestly it’d probably be easier to get him on some throw-away crime of passion than what he’s really into.”

“So you don’t think Rossi is capable of murdering a lover?”

Emily gives a small laugh. “Rossi’s a lover, not a fighter, when it comes to women.” I was never good at hiding my disbelief so she sees it immediately. “Don’t get me wrong, he’s not some pussy cat, but more often than not the domestics are with the girl doing to the violence, not him.”

I can’t help but give a sly smile. “That include you?”

“Once or twice,” she confesses with a laugh that I try hard not to join in on. “But I always made it up to him.”

I make a slight unnerved face. “I’ll, uh, just take your word for it.” She laughs more and my nerves get the better of me so that my hand goes to my stitches again.

“Reid,” her voices pauses my hand, “do I need to tie your hands behind your back?”

“Um…uh…no.” I go red with embarrassment at being caught. “It’s just, um, itchy.”

“I gathered.”

Her tone is only mildly patronizing so I let it slide.

“Does Rossi use the trains in his business?”

“Of course.”

“So he might know some good places to hide people.”

“I guess. You think, maybe, we should go talk to him?”

I give a laugh as I work myself up from the floor. “I don’t think that’s a very wise move.”

“Why not?”

“Well, first, cause I’m not all that thrilled to return to the scene of my own stabbing.”

Emily nods her understanding without a smile this time.

“You want something to drink?”

I hear sounds of Emily getting up as I head towards the kitchen. “Sure,” she replies. “What do you have?”

“Water, OJ, milk, tea, coffee, and I can make just about any drink you can think of.” I go to a cabinet and pull out a few glasses. “I also have, uh, absinthe but that’s not exactly conducive to the type of analysis we need to be doing right now.”

“Absinthe? Really?”

She can’t believe it.

“Yeah, you ever had it?”

“Yes I have.” Her heels click their way into the kitchen. “I’m surprised you have though.”

“I grew up in Vegas.”

“So, naturally, you would drink absinthe.”

“Naturally.” I throw her a teasing smile. I’m not about to give her any more. Sometimes a little mystery between two people is good. “So, what would you like, Emily?”

“How about…a Bad Habit?”

“Coming right up!”

I move to get the Peach Schnapps and then the Vodka from the freezer.

“You didn’t even ask what it was.” She points out, just this side of impressed.

“I know what it is,” I reply. “Vegas, remember?”

“There’s a lot about you that we don’t know, isn’t there, Dr Reid?”

“Tons.”

She laughs a little as she watched me mix our drinks. It doesn’t take her long to speak up again. “We really do need to talk to Rossi.”

“I, uh…I know. I just,” I pour out her drink and continue as I hand it over, “don’t think speaking to him at his club, with all his, uh, thugs, around is going to get us anywhere.”

I put the schnapps away, grab a cola out the fridge, and pour it in my glass before adding the vodka.

“Maybe we should get him to come to us then?”

I watch her lips hover over the edge of her glass before it gives her drink a kiss.

Before I risk staring I cast my eyes down to sip my own.

She swallows then speaks. “This is really good.”

I swallow. “Thanks. So, um…any ideas of, uh…how to get Rossi to, uh, come to us?”

“Tons.” She smirks a little. “But I don’t know if any will make Hotch all that thrilled.”

“If any involve you as bait, probably not.”

She nods and shrugs knowing I’m right.

There’s a mile long silence of us sipping and watching one another before she sets the half-emptied glass on the counter. “Well we can always see if Hotch has any ideas of his own?”

“Let’s, uh, call him.”

Emily grabs up her drink once again only to down it in two long swallows and leave the glass in the sink. “Screw that, let’s get to the office and start this now.”

I hesitate, then finish my drink in three swallows. “Fine, collect my map and things, I’ll go get dressed.”

***

We’re in her car heading to the office in no time…and I’m really starting to wish people would let me drive. Emily drives as fast as Hotch, but slightly less controlled seeing as she insists she can drive and smoke at the same time. She can’t.

“You know a little aloe vera on the wound might help with the itchiness.” Emily calls out over the engine.

I hadn’t even noticed my hand was at my stomach. “I wasn’t itchy, I was nervous.” I smile a little.

“About?”

“You thinking we’re driving in the demolition derby.” I crack.

She laughs.

She also screeches the car to a halt when we arrive at the building.

Hotch and Morgan are both already there, piling things into the trunk of Hotch’s car. I’m guessing weapons. The two men stand, but only one smiles as we get out.

“Told ya we wouldn’t hafta call ‘em,” Morgan grins his way through his sentence.

“What’s going on?” Emily’s already to the trunk with the men as I try not to vomit into the nearest trashcan from her driving.

“We’re going to speak with Rossi.” Hotch informs her.

“With an artillery?” She glancing into the trunk.

Morgan chuckles. “You know a better way to bust in on a mobster’s poker game when he doesn’t want ya there?”

Emily’s nodding silently by the time I find my way over to the group. I clear my throat a little before speaking. “So…uh…Emily and I were talking and, uh, we should ask Rossi about the train tracks.”

“Train tracks?” A single brow of Hotch’s arches.

“It’s possible Rossi’s being set up.” Emily speaks and Hotch nods along. “If he is then the train tracks would be a great place to stash Jordan, dead or alive.”

Hotch’s nod stops as he goes to cover the small arsenal with a tarp. “Then we’ll ask him about the major stretches he might use that others would know about.”

“Can, uh, I uh…ask a question?” I butt in.

Hotch’s eyes flick to me and he waits.

“I just, you know, um, thought we were playing this…uh…you know…quiet?”

“We need something big to get a man like Rossi’s attention.” Morgan chuckles out.

Hotch gives an almost reluctant smile to Morgan’s comment. “We need to show Rossi that he’s in over his head on the men he’s chosen to employ. I’m guessing, on some level, he already knows but I aim to make it a little clearer this time around.”

“Also, it’s a little harder to play cocky with a buncha folks waving guns in your face.” Morgan chimes in once more. I’m starting to think he’s just eager to kick a little ass.

“So basically we shake his tree and see what information falls out his mouth.” Emily’s smiling. She also seems ready for a little ass-kicking.

“And that should, uh, loosen him up on whatever he was holding back on in his club?” The pieces are starting to fly together for me.

“Yes.” Hotch answers. Unlike the others he’s all business.

Emily smiles, “Sounds like a plan.”

“A good one.” I concur. I’m generally not up for the kicking of asses (because I’m too often on the receiving end), but sometimes you have to do what you have to do.

Morgan’s grin widens. “So let’s go bust some heads!”

***///***

 _"It's time to prove to your friends that you're worth a damn. Sometimes that means dying, sometimes it means killing a whole lot of people." ~ Dwight, Sin City_


	13. The Turning Point

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is from Hotch's POV

  
_"No reason at all to play it quiet. No reason to play it any way but my way." ~ Marv, Sin City_

***///***

I tell Reid to ride with me and for Morgan to go with Emily in her car. I hear the two of them arguing over who’ll drive.

“You know usually I drive my own car.” Emily’s displeasure is evident as Morgan goes to the driver’s side.

Morgan’s amusement shows just as clear. “Then this change of events must be very disappointing to you.”

“Morgan,” I call his attention back to me. “You have the walkie-talkie?”

“Yeah,” he flashes the watch like he would his badge. “Keep in touch.” He climbs in as a bewildered Emily gets in her car on the other side.

***

“There’s a hand pistol in the glove-box,” I inform Reid as we settle in and I start to drive. The young man goes for it without word. “It’s a last resort sort of thing, I’d rather you be armed than not. …How’s your stomach anyway?”

“Itchy.”

I nearly smile. “Use a little aloe vera, that should help.”

“That’s what Emily told me.” There’s a bit of silence, then the kid speaks again. “So, uh, you got walkie-talkies?”

“Oh, uh,” I clear my throat, “yeah, I got a pair for a friend of mine’s son and they, uh, seemed like a good idea. You can get them to run on a different frequency from police radios too so...that's good.”

“They look like the ones Dick Tracy has in his comics.”

I smile some to myself. It was why I first got them for Jack. The boy is obsessed with that character and seems to think I'm the living version…honestly it’s probably still the most flattering thing I’ve heard in years, that I might bear resemblance to somebody’s hero.

“Do we each get one?” Dr Reid asks as he picks the one on the dash up to examine it.

“Right now I only have the two, but I might get more.” If they work out in our favor; this is a trial run outside some testing already done by Morgan, Garcia, and I. Garcia and Morgan love them. True most of the two days of supposed testing they actually spent flirting with each other over the damned things, but the principles of testing were done. Morgan's police issue radio didn't pick us up and the sound quality was excellent considering they're technically a child's toy.

***

About a block away from the building where Rossi keeps his penthouse Emily’s voice comes over the watch.

“There’s a back entrance I can direct you to that’s generally without security if you’d like.”

I ask Emily if she has a key or knows the way to get us in that door as I drive past the building and head farther up the block to turn.

Emily says no, she doesn’t have a key, but the door’s old and so is the lock. It shouldn’t take much to get it open and, if we can, we can sneak up the back stairs to just outside Rossi’s penthouse.

It’s Reid who assures me that he can get us in.

I have no choice but to trust these two like I would Morgan.

I drive according to Emily’s directions, slowing the car down to a roll and low rumble once at the back of the building. She’s right, there’s no one there. It’s a dirty little alley that not even stray cats would bother making a rest stop of. It’s perfect.

I stuff the miniature walkie-talkie into my inside jacket pocket and pull out two of the sawn-off shotguns from the trunk. I toss one to Morgan as he heads over.

“Do I get one?” Reid asks with wide-eyes.

“No.” Morgan and I reply in unison.

He’s thinking he’d be better protected with it, I’m sure, but I’m guessing Reid’ll just get himself or one of us hurt or killed with the thing. Being denied doesn’t seem to offend him too much though, he just shrugs it off as he stuffs the gun I gave him in the car into his pants pocket.

“Great, now how do we get in?” Morgan asks as he looks up at the fire escape ladder that’s too high up to grab and pull down before looking at the door itself. He’s thinking of kicking it down already.

Emily shrugs. “That’s for you boys to figure out.” I told Morgan to return her little handgun back to her before we got in the cars and she never asks for her own high-powered weapon so I presume she’s all set.

Reid heads to the door, examining the lock some. “Emily do, um, you have any pins in your hair?”

“Excuse me?” Her eyes go a little wide, then wary.

“Bobby pins? Or, uh, even tiny hair clips will work if, you know, they have metal bits to them.”

She’s not completely following, or doesn’t think Reid’s going to do it, but her hands sweep her hair and she pulls a few black hairpins out and hands them to Reid anyway.

Reid mutters a thanks before going to work the lock with the thin pieces of metal.

“Wait, you can pick locks?” Morgan sounds almost insulted that he didn’t know.

Me? I’m impressed. My own hands were never quite dexterous enough to accomplish that trick.

There’s a series of clicks as Reid works before the one of the bolt sliding out of its place comes in loud and clear. The door’s unlocked and Reid slowly, carefully, opens it before smiling some at Morgan. “Uh…yeah…sometimes.”

"Did you know this?" Morgan asks me. I shake my head a touch and my friend turns to Emily. "Did you?"

"No," she's smiling wide, "but Dr Reid here's full of surprises."

Reid grins like he just won the science fair as he holds the door open for us.

Emily heads in first telling Reid he can keep the pins, Morgan follows her, and then I head in leaving Reid to slip in, close, and re-lock the door behind him.

“Prentiss, I need you to be a distraction.”

“Aren’t I always?” the woman’s lips quirk up at me.

My lips curl even as I make the effort to ignore the comment. “I'm assuming at least one guard will be stationed outside. We need you to lure him into the stairwell.”

“And then?”

Morgan smiles. “And then it’s lights out.”

Emily nods her understanding. “I’m taking the elevator though because, trust me, nothing says set up like a beautiful woman hoofing it up the stairs.”

“We’ll take it to the floor below the penthouse and use the stairs on the last flight,” I tell them all. “If there are two guards Emily can either lure both or we'll use one’s disappearance to get the other to come to us. Understood?”

The group, the team, nods.

“Morgan and I’ll take point,” my lingo sweeps back to my days on the force. “We subdue and control, only fire if the threat is eminent. Our aim isn’t to piss this guy off, it’s to get his attention and talk with him. Any questions?”

They all shake their head.

“Good.”

***

I watch through the tiny crack made in opening the stairwell door as Emily presents her best slink to the man outside the penthouse door. She smiles, laughs, pets the man’s arm before convincing him to follow her towards us.

The creep watches her ass the entire time.

As they get closer Emily slips me a wink and wicked little smirk. She waits until she's past our hiding spots in the stairwell then glances back to the thug behind her. “Are you sure no one will hear us?”

“Nah, they won’t hear a peep.”

The moment he’s got an arm close enough Morgan yanks the thug forward and I fall back on the door to shut it.

“Not a word,” I warn as if Morgan’s chokehold isn’t silencer enough.

Honestly I doubt the guy ever heard or saw any of us he’s out so fast. Morgan drags him down half the flight and rests him in a corner before tying an ankle to the railing with a bit of rope. The poor excuse for a guard should be fine there. He'll wake up in a bit with a sore throat, but otherwise unharmed.

I check the hall for any changes, any sign someone might've gotten suspicious of the chatter out in the hall, and then proceed to exit with the others. Morgan remembers formation, moves swift and low just to the back and right of me with his boomstick out and at the ready. He’s ready. He won’t jump the gun though, he’s seasoned by now and for all his love of jokes and tackling Morgan knows when to get serious. Right now is that time and he is serious.

The other two I hear move behind us in their best attempts at copying our stance. When we reach the door Emily sticks herself behind me with her gun drawn and knees bent a little to keep low. Reid does the same behind Morgan. For civilians they catch on fast.

I signal Morgan with my hands. Three…two…one…

Morgan kicks hard just above the doorknob and the room opens up to us with the splintering of wood. There’s cursing and grumbles from inside, the sounds of pistols being pulled and cocked, but Morgan and I enter without hesitation.

I do what gives us the most leverage the fastest; point the sawed-off shotgun directly at David Rossi as he sits at the poker table. “Tell your men to stand down.” I order with unwavering firmness as I take a quick glance around the room.

Five men at the game table, five men (presumably bodyguards) watching, a guy at the bar, and four ladies who look like they’d like to do nothing more than run screaming from the room. And then there’s Rossi.

Rossi who gives an amused look up from his cards at me. “If you wanted to join the game all you had to do was give us a call and buy in.” He chuckles at his own joke.

I cock my weapon. “I won’t tell you again.”

The mobster sighs, rolls his eyes, and moves his hands as if encouraging us all to sit and settle down. “It’s alright, everyone, Hotchner here just has no manners is all.”

The men at the table are the first to relax. They begin to watch the scene as they might a show onstage while the bodyguards tuck their weapons away, but maintain a sharp focus on the four of us. Then the bartender returns to his job and the girls to theirs.

“Now, tell me, to what do I owe this tremendous displeasure?” Rossi asks as he knocks the table to get the game going again.

"Outside what I'd consider a disturbing lapse in security?"

Rossi looks past me to Emily with a smirk. "Shake a little ass at the doorman, Emily?" Her name oozes out his mouth with enough disrespect my trigger finger twitches.

Emily saves me the trouble by charging forward. "Don't you _Emily_ me!"

Morgan jumps ahead of her and blocks her way. "Not worth the effort, Beautiful," he warns with a shake of his head.

The woman's glare stays, but she doesn't press forward. Thank god for small favors.

I relax the hammer of the gun to ensure it doesn’t go off before lowering it and walking over to the poker table. “Look, we could go a few rounds of increasingly less witty, more insulting, banter but neither of us have the time and neither does Jordan Todd.”

“This again?” Rossi cuts in.

“I’m not finished,” I cut back with a glare. “You’re getting fucked by your own people and the more you bury your head in the sand the more people are going to die because of it. Now maybe you don’t really care for Jordan as anything more than a good time and her getting murdered on your account is no big deal to to you," I set a hand down on the table, lean in towards Rossi, locking eyes with him, "but it is to me and I promise you, if that happens, I will spend the rest of my time making a point to fuck up your shit every which way I can.”

“Hey,” a loudmouth mobster to the left of me starts to stand up. “Who the fuck are you to threaten Rossi?”

“Sit down.” I bark out with little more than a glance at him.

He does. He doesn’t want to, but he does.

“I’m guessing Foyet’s behind this,” I turn back to Rossi. “He’s a greedy, egotistical, sadistic bastard and he’s on your payroll. What I can’t figure is why on Earth you’re protecting him. Is it pride David? You don’t want to admit you made a mistake in letting him be a part of your organization?”

The attitude in Rossi’s eyes changes in a single blink. I stand up straight once again and look down on the man knowing I’ve hit the nail on the head, he just doesn’t want to admit it aloud in front of everyone.

“Let’s go in the other room and talk.”

I nod in agreement then turn back. “Emily, come with us.” Emily heads over to me with that same look of annoyance she's had since Rossi addressed her. I'm not all that fond of putting these two together, it could cause my talks with Rossi to break down into something personal and petty, but I need Emily. I need her for backup, for fact checking, and because she’s the only other one that might’ve known Jordan as well as Rossi. “Morgan stay out here with Reid.”

“No problem, boss,” Morgna replies in his more serious tone.

“Nobody leaves. If you need me you know what to do.”

Morgan nods and pulls back his coat a little to show he's still got possession of the other walkie-talkie.

Rossi stands up and tells his people he’ll be back shortly then heads towards the back bedroom with Emily and me following behind.

***

The moment I shut the door behind the three of us Rossi sighs, loosens then removes his tie, and settles on the bed. Without his men to play to I see now just how much he knows he’s screwed. It’s actually a bit of a relief. He's stubborn, not dense. Stubborn I can work through and with.

“I’m trying to find a way to eliminate him,” the man confesses.

“That’s good, but Jordan might not have time to wait.” My tone relaxes just a little.

“I know.” There’s another sigh and he looks over at Emily. “I didn’t realize her disappearance had anything to do with me until recently.”

“Bullshit.” Emily counters sounding more hurt than angry from her spot by a dresser.

“I had a feeling but I didn’t…I didn’t actually know.” Rossi turns back to me. “Not until your boy, the boy, Dr Reid, was attacked outside my club.” My eyes narrow and he quickly adds with a raising of the hands of innocence. “Which I had nothing to do with.”

“But did nothing about.”

“I had my people fix him up and Lila take him back to her place.”

“And then paid off Foyet, again, I’m guessing.” I don’t exactly give credit for a good deed if an equally bad one is done right after.

“It was better than taking the risk of not paying him.” Rossi counters.

I can’t exactly argue that – paying Foyet might be keeping Jordan alive, might be preventing others from being attacked – so instead simply move on. “We need to know about any business you conduct by the tracks.”

“The tracks? You think that’s where Jordan’s being held?”

“We think you’re being set up and along the tracks is a good place to hide a kidnap victim,” Emily elaborates.

“So where would you hide someone along the tracks, David?” I ask. When Rossi hesitates I let my frustration show once more. I head over to him slowly but steadily. “This isn’t the time to be worried about your own crime-committing ass, Rossi. For once, do something selfless."

"And then get screwed after all this is done?"

"I’m not a cop anymore, I don’t give a shit what you have going on except as it relates to this case. _This_ missing girl.” I stand over him, look down on him, let my building aggravation show in eyes and tone. “I have exactly one job to do, one task I want to complete, and that’s finding Jordan. Now stop dicking around and tell what I want to know!”

***///***

 _"When I need to find something out, I just go out and find somebody that knows more than me, and I go and I ask them. Sometimes I ask pretty hard." ~ Marv, Sin City_


	14. 5 Against the House

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is from Reid's POV

  
_"Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?" ~ Abraham Lincoln_

***///***

Unsure what to do now that Hotch, Emily, and Rossi have shut themselves off from the rest of us I head towards the table. “So…uh…what, huh…what are you playing?”

“Tiddlywinks,” the guy Hotch yelled at earlier answers with a melodramatic roll of the eyes.

The others in the room chuckle save Morgan who just looks down like he’s embarrassed for me. I just smile though, toss out a nervous near-giggle. “No, I uh…I know it’s poker but, you know, um…what, uh…what variation?”

“Classic Texas Hold ‘Em, Kid,” another one of the men answers before smirking a little. “Ya wanna play?”

“Oh, well, I uh…I don’t have the money to buy in, I’m sure.”

This new, seemingly more friendly, player goes to push Rossi’s former seat out some with his foot. “Just play in Rossi’s place, I’m sure he won’t mind.”

I know the smile that everyone at the table’s giving me. It's downright predatory. They think I’m an easy mark and, when I lose all of Rossi’s money, it’ll be hilarious to watch Rossi go ballistic and exact his revenge.

“Oh, um,” I smile a little, “well if…if you’re sure he won’t mind.”

“Reid, man,” Morgan calls out, his eyes just this side of panicked as he shakes his head fast and tight. He's warning me.

I play dumb. “They say it’s alright, Morgan, don’t worry.” I sit and tuck my feet under the chair so as to not kick anyone else. I'm left with the hand Rossi currently had when we busted in as the group picked up exactly where they’d left off, but I'm not worried.

***

By the time Hotch and Emily exit with Rossi I’ve won three rounds, played two of the men out of the game completely, and am well on my way to cleaning out the rest.

Rossi’s chuckle hits my ears first, then his voice. “You all getting cleaned out by the kid?”

I smile a little to myself as I set down a royal flush and take the large pot from the table. “Did you know that the odds of this hand is approximately 1 in 649,739?”

“Reid.” Hotch’s voice is swamped in his own seriousness.

I look up as he heads towards Morgan who’s serious face is back.

“It’s time to go.”

I shrug and begin to stand, stuffing bills and other odds and ends from my defeated competitors into my pockets. I take the loudmouth’s very nice fedora too. “Thanks again for inviting me to play, everyone, it was, uh…really nice.”

“You know, technically, that’s my winnings.” Rossi points out still more amused than anything.

“Consider it my team’s fee,” Hotch counters.

Rossi laughs with a smirk. “So, what, now I pay you?”

“Hey, at least we don’t suddenly raise our prices and kidnap your loved ones to ensure you keep paying.” Morgan pointed out.

“Fair enough.”

“We’ll keep in touch,” Hotch assures the mobster before we file out.

***

“Rossi gave Emily and I four key places where someone with knowledge about his business might hide Jordon in order to either blackmail or frame him.” Hotch announces once we’re back out by the cars.

I give a slight frown. “That’s still too many.”

“And it’s assuming whiz kid and the dame here are even right in Jordan being held in that area,” Morgan adds in a slightly less pleasant, more hostile, disposition as me.

Before Emily or I have time enough to be offended Hotch speaks on our behalf. “It’s more likely than not, even Rossi confirmed that it’s what he’d do in the kidnapper’s place.” The man’s eyes then go to me. “But you’re right, it’s a number of locations and all spaced apart as far as they are...it's too much for us to cover properly.”

“So what do we do?” Emily asks unfazed, confident that Hotch won’t confess a problem without a solution.

“Go back to the office and wait.”

“Wait?” Morgan is not even remotely approving of this idea.

“Rossi’s making inquiries, inquires we otherwise wouldn’t have access to, and when he’s got something that might help narrow the search he said he'd call us at the office.”

Morgan tries to privatize the conversation by blocking Hotch off from Emily and I. It doesn’t help much; we can hear what’s being said anyway. “We’re supposed to trust Mr. Slick to come through on this?“

Hotch barely reacts. “We don’t have another option. The moment we start looking in one of the locations it could alert whoever took Jordan that we’re closing in and they could move her. They could kill her.”

“And if you’re wrong? If Rossi screws us?”

“He won’t.”

It’s the end of the discussion. Hotch gets in his car, I follow, and Morgan follows Emily into hers, jaw clenched and eyes darkened.

***

The moment we arrive at the office Garcia is up out of her chair and pulling me into a brightly colored bear hug. “Oh, god, I was so worried about you!” she declares to the group. “You poor thing, are you okay? Does it hurt still? Do you need anything?”

“Uh…” the questions pour out altogether and I’m not sure which to answer first. “I’m, uh…”

“He’s fine, Garcia.” Hotch answers for me with a faint smile. “He’s tougher than he looks.”

Garcia smiles over at Hotch before turning back to me. “Well, I’m glad you’re okay, Dr Reid. I don’t know what we’d do without our resident genius.”

I just shrug off the compliment with a pleasant thank you.

“Garcia,” Hotch’s voice pulls her focus. “We’re expecting a call from David Rossi so please keep the lines clear.”

“David Rossi?”

“Yes.”

“As in The Mobster David Rossi?”

“Yes.” Hotch gives simple answers in plain tones. He then turns to me. “I’m not sure how many, if any, locations he’ll be able to eliminate for us so I’d like you to examine the four more closely and see if you can’t cross a few off yourself, okay?”

I nod. “Not a problem.”

Hotch returns the nod before his eyes go to Emily. “Ms Prentiss, I’d like to speak with you in private, if that’s alright.”

The woman’s lips grow seductive. “That’s fine by me, Mr Hotchner.”

Hotch's own face remains business formal as he opens the door to his the inner office for her to enter before following and closing the door behind them.

I go to the floor, spread out my colored map, and start to examine it more carefully. I focus in on the tracks, the surrounding areas, and try my best to think like a kidnapper.

***

As time passes Morgan paces, releasing small grumbles and curses as he goes, seeming unable to settle.

Garcia tries to lift his spirits in her smile and optimism...when that doesn’t work she turns to another method. “Derek, sweetie, I love you but if you don’t stop pacing I’m going to slip 'ludes in your coffee.”

I smile a little from my spot on the floor where I’ve eliminated another prospect. One down, three to go.

“I can’t help it baby girl,” Morgan frowns more, though does finally sit on the couch. “I don’t like waiting to start and waiting for some opportunistic mobster who’s at least partially at fault for this girl going missing in the first place is almost infuriating.”

“Well, uh, it shouldn’t be too much longer though, right?” I speak up. “I mean, he’ll make a few calls and then get back to us.”

“ _If_ he gets back to us.”

“Hotch said he would.”

Morgan just snorts.

“You don’t trust Hotch?” I ask curiously.

“Of course I do,” Morgan snaps, insulted. “It’s the mobster and his ex I don’t trust.”

“Yeah but…uh…even if you don’t trust them you should trust that Hotch trusts them, you know? That, if Hotch trusts them they might…well…be worth trusting.”

Morgan sighs as he looks over at me. “You got a lot to learn, kid.”

I smile through my annoyance. “I’m not the one who contradicts himself by claiming to trust a person then refuses to trust that person's judgment of others.”

“You don’t have to trust someone entirely all the time.” Morgan counters dully. He’s thinking about someone else, I’m sure of it. He runs his head over his close shaven head and gives another sigh before seeming to melt into the couch finally resigned to waiting.

“No, you don’t,” I concede, return to my map, "but it’s better if you do.”

Silence spreads out over the room. Morgan tries to catnap, maybe succeeds, before Garcia psst’s me until I look up.

“Whaddya think Hotch and Pretty Ms Prentiss are doing in there?” Her smile is sweet even in its deviousness.

“Talking.”

I’m sure she wanted something better, something more suggestive, but none of those options seem all that realistic to me. Not from Hotch anyway.

The phone rings out and Morgan nearly trips over himself as he jumps up. He doesn’t have the chance to even motion to Garcia about the phone either, she’s already on it.

“Private Investigator Hotchner’s, Garcia speaking, tell me something good.” It’s actually more professional than usual. “Well that is good, I’ll patch you through on his line.”

The colorful secretary hits a few buttons on the phone and then hangs up. I hear the phone ring in the inner office. I hear Hotch answer. I hear some muffled talk and the door opens as Emily slips out.

“Figured I’d give him some privacy.” The woman explains to us, closing the door behind her before heading to sit on the couch where Morgan’s resettled. “So, Dr Genius, been able to shrink the search area any more?”

“Actually I have.” I smile up at her. “One of the places is pretty close to a factory that’s still in use. For short term dealings it’s fine, even a quick, uh, murder, but in the actual holding of a captive it’s probably the least convenient of the four and whoever’s holding Jordan seems like they’d be experienced enough to know that.”

Emily nods with a smile. “Makes sense.”

The door swings open once again and Hotch steps out. “Rossi said he heard about increased patrol by the police on the south end of the tracks.”

“Off the record ones,” Morgan chimes in. He’s the cop so he would know.

Hotch still nods to add his own confirmation. “So we’ll focus there,” our boss then turns his focus to me and my map. “Were you able to eliminate any other locations?”

“Just one but, uh, it is at the southern part of the city so…” I smile a little.

“We have just one location to focus on now.” Hotch finishes my presumption as he goes to grab his coat. “Let’s go.”

We file in behind Hotch leaving Garcia behind to man the phone and wish us well.

***///***

 _"The life of man is made up of action and endurance; and life is fruitful in the ratio in which it is laid out in noble action or in patient perseverance." ~ Henry Liddon_


	15. Railroaded!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is from Hotch's POV

  
_"Hell's waking up every goddamn day and not even knowing why you're here." ~ Marv, Sin City_

***///***

We keep ourselves just under the speed limit so as to not attract attention. If Rossi's information was good, if cops are already touchy about people being in the area, the last thing we need is to attract attention. We’re nearing the end now, it’s all or nothing, and I’ll be damned if someone’s impatience gets Jordan Todd killed.

I’m running on the presumption that Ms Todd’s still alive, I always do. In the past that’s brought me a lot of letdowns, even heartaches, but if my old friend and boss Jason Gideon taught me anything it’s that you have to keep the hope alive. Believe there’s always a chance to save someone and you’ll fight all the harder to do just that. Hope is a hard flame to hold, it can burn to your soul, but it’s better to have that flicker than no light at all.

“What are you gonna have the dame and the kid, do?” Morgan’s voice breaks the over the growl of the engine. “Are they even equipped to handle it if things go south?”

“I spoke with Emily about that possibility in my office.”

“What’d you say?”

I sigh. Morgan’s trust takes a long time to earn and not enough time has passed for the new members to gain it. He wants to be sure I’ve made the right choice in allowing Emily and Dr Reid to be as much a part of this as they’ve become. I know Morgan means well, but this isn’t the time for debate. It’s the time to trust and hope and be as prepared as you can be for whatever happens next.

“I prepared her for the possibility that Jordan might already be dead, that whoever took her could be there, or that the location we’re heading to is the wrong one.”

“How’d she handle that?”

I glance over at my former partner while we wait at a red light. “She’ll be fine, Morgan, and so will Dr Reid.”

“The kid’s already been stabbed, he can’t fire a gun, and I’m pretty sure he’s half-blind without those glasses of his.”

The light turns green and, in my frustration, I bolt the car ahead before relaxing my foot from the gas. “It’ll be fine, Morgan, trust me.” If he can’t trust any of them he should at least be able to trust me.

***

I slow down a few yards from the location and go to grab the walkie-talkie watch off the dash. “Prentiss. Reid.”

“Uh…yeah?” Reid answers.

“I want you to focus on Jordan, on finding and saving her.”

“What…uh…what are you and Morgan doing then?”

Morgan gives an eye roll as if Reid’s question is proving some point of his. I ignore it.

“If there’s anyone at the location when we get there we’ll deal with them. You and Prentiss deal with Jordan.” I pause a moment, unsure if I should ask this aloud, if it breaks that hope rule, but decide it’s better to know, to be prepared. “Do either you or Prentiss know CPR or…any form of first aid.”

“I do,” Reid states before the radio goes silent a moment and he returns. “Prentiss says she knows CPR.”

“Okay, good.” I start to look for a spot to tuck the cars that’s both close and inconspicuous.

I find one, park, and wait for Emily to pull her car up next to mine. Before getting out I turn to Morgan.

“You’re already on suspension, you don’t have to come.”

Morgan’s grin comes slowly, but surely, to his face. “You think I’d let you have this shindig without me?”

“I just want to be sure.” He can’t afford to be fired over this; I can’t afford to have him fired over this.

“I’m sure, Hotch. I’m behind you a hundred and ten percent,” his hand goes to the car door, “now let’s go save us a damsel.” The laugh slips out as he does.

I pull my banishment-from-the-force watch off my wrist and replace it with the walkie-talkie. It’s clunky and awkward but it’ll be easier to access in a pinch. I look up to see Prentiss doing the same with the walkie-talkie watch I gave her and Reid.

“So, where do we start?” Even after warning her that things might end badly, she might not get her roommate back, Emily doesn’t seem in the least bit nervous about charging forward. Is she that sure of the way things will turn out? Or maybe she's unconcerned? Or just very good at hiding her feelings?

Before I have time to respond to the question, or even wonder to myself why Emily's so sure, Reid cuts in. “There are two main, uh, structures in this area that would suit a hostage long-term. One is a storage container approximately 5.6 yards from here and the other is a, uh, maintenance and repair station for the trains themselves which is 6.15 yards.” He smiles, pleased to have the information ready on hand for us.

“You and Emily take the storage container,” I instruct. “Morgan and I will head towards the repair station. Don’t split up and if you find anything contact us.”

Emily’s lips nearly smile with surety. “Sure thing, boss.”

“Yeah…boss.” Reid adds in a voice somewhere between nervous and excited that reminds me of my earliest days on the force.

Morgan and I decide to take a more roundabout route, looking for any signs that others might be around, possibly laying in wait. We get to there only to find nothing. Nothing but rats scurrying over broken-down, empty, train cars in a massive room that, once upon of time, may have passed for a train maintenance and repair station.

“You know, if she was ever in here, she’s not anymore,” Morgan points out before giving a curse and kick to an overly friendly rodent.

I nod solemnly in response before turning to go. There’s no reason to stick around the location, no one’s about to return to it. “Prentiss, found anything?” I ask into the watch as both Morgan and I make our way in the direction of the storage unit.

Nothing.

“Prentiss, are you there?”

Silence.

“Emily?”

My feet start to pick up the pace even before my mind can allow itself to start to panic. Morgan follows close behind and soon enough we’re charging, personal safety be damned. Just a few feet away and we hear the shots.

***

The man bolts out into my line of sight and I recognize him immediately. Vogel. Timothy Vogel. Part-time corrections officer, full time sleaze. He doesn't notice Morgan and I approaching as he continues to fire into the container that fires back; I take advantage of that, fire a shot of my own. He's spun a touch when the bullet makes contact with his shoulder, which catches his attention and the attention of whoever was firing inside.

“You come any closer and I’ll have my fall guy.” He warns, his gun on me now.

I don’t want to fire again, I can’t risk killing him if Jordan hasn’t been found yet, but I keep my gun trained. “Meaning?”

I know what he means, he means for Jordan Todd going missing, possibly getting killed, but I need to stall him as Morgan slips around the container. My making any kind of arrest means fuck-all these days, but Morgan still has the pull to make things stick. And we need this to stick.

Vogel smirks. He’s arrogant, but smart enough not to blurt out specifics.

“She alive?”

“What do you think?”

“I think she is.” I allow one corner of my lips to curl up.

“The fuck’s so funny, Hotchner?”

“Your arrogance.” Vogel snorts so I continue. “You honestly think you’re in charge?”

“You think you are?” He volleys the question right back.

“I know I’m not just Foyet’s patsy, can you say that?”

“I’m no one’s patsy.” His aggressive tone tells me I hit a button.

I see Morgan’s already around the container, creeping up behind Vogel, and let out a smile. “No, you’re just his little bitch.”

It’s not very original, but it’s enough. Rage flares in Vogel’s eyes and he goes to fire. Morgan hits first, shooting out one of the man’s legs, which causes Vogel to shoot wide and miss me altogether. I let Morgan make his off-duty arrest as I move swiftly to find Emily and Reid.

They never answered my calls on the watch and now that Morgan has Vogel my concern begins to form itself into a monster.

“Emily? Reid?” I call out before even stepping foot into the unit. “Are you alright? Answer me!”

“We're fine!” Both yell back with heavy breaths. The seriousness of this, of the danger, must’ve finally hit them both. Sometimes that happens, the terror only starts to come after the action is over.

“We, uh…w-we…” Between his now erratic breathing and usual stammering speech pattern Reid can’t even complete a sentence.

Thankfully I find out what he’s trying to say as I approach him and Emily hovering over a barely conscious woman laying on the ground. The watch, the walkie-talkie they didn’t answer, is laying beside them. It must've slipped off Emily's wrist in her rush to be by her friend.

The woman herself, this Jordan Todd, would be beautiful if she weren’t also beaten and battered by her latest living conditions and captor. At first glance I see no signs for true concern, but common sense tells me she’ll need to be checked and experience tells me she’ll need at least a day in the hospital to recover from malnutrition and possible hypothermia.

“Jordan, baby, open your eyes,” Emily says for the second time as I kneel with them, remove my jacket and the watch. “She just did it a moment ago,” Emily insists to me before making the request to her roommate once more.

“Reid, go get Morgan, tell him we have Todd, she’s alive, and we’re bringing her out.”

I stuff both watches into Reid’s hand as he nods some and gets up a little awkwardly, tripping a touch over himself, but quickly recovers and heads out.

“Jordan, please…please open your eyes.” Emily begs, the softer side she’d hidden so well finally seeping out of her. She looks over at me. “She’ll be all right, won’t she?”

I don’t want to lie, but I don’t want to tell the truth either. “She’ll need to be checked out, but I don’t see anything life-threatening at the moment.” I do my best to keep Jordan comfortable as I slip my jacket around her.

There’s a grumble of a moan from the woman.

“Ms Todd?”

“Call her Jordan,” Emily reminds me to show my humanity.

“Jordan, can you hear me?” Another groan comes in reply. “Jordan, my name is Aaron Hotchner, I’m here to help.” I slip my arms under the woman. “I’m going to lift you up now, okay?” I shift on my feet and lift.

Jordan’s light as air and boney as a skeleton as I carry her. Emily following close behind.

“You should take her to the hospital, Emily. You have your own car, it’ll raise less questions if you take her.”

“What about you? And Morgan?”

Morgan is already waiting for us outside.

“Where’s Vogel?”

I don’t imagine him getting far, but I don’t like taking chances either.

“Reid’s watching him, I told the kid if Vogel moves to just run him over with the car. Jordan alright?”

“Considering. I’m having Emily take her to the hospital down the street,” I explain as I carry the woman towards Emily’s car.

Emily rushes ahead to clear out the back and keep the door open. She’s shaky, vulnerable, and I wish I could just hold her tight and promise everything would be okay. But I can’t. It’s not the truth and it’s not the time.

Once Jordan is tucked inside, covered the best she can be by my jacket, I turn to Emily as she goes to the driver’s side door. “Drive directly there, do not let any thing or any one stop you, and when asked say you and Morgan were searching on your own. Don’t mention me.”

“Okay.”

“Have someone call up the police and tell them where Morgan is and that he has the kidnapper in custody at this location.”

“Okay,” Emily opens the door, goes to get in, but then pauses. “What about Foyet? He was part of this too, he should be pay too.”

I don’t want to show her my defeat on that. I glance down a moment before taking a deep breath and answering. “We have Vogel, with any luck he’ll turn on Foyet. Now go.” _Because I don’t have a better answer than that for you right now._

***///***

 _"I could see their woe and sadness, and I pledged to ease their pain; their suffering would not be in vain." ~ The Prince and the Pauper, Mark Twain_


	16. Nightgale's Welcome Us

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is from Reid's POV

  
_"Happiness is only real when shared" ~ Sean Penn, Into the Wild_

***///***

When we arrive at _Nightingale’s_ Gideon’s already set up a table with Chinese take-out and a smiling Garcia seated beside him to complete the pleasant greeting.

“There’s my boys!” Garcia stands and announces almost proudly. “Emily called me from the hospital and said you found Jordan!”

“And so you knew we’d head here?” I ask, more than a touch puzzled. Hotch had only asked if I wanted to get drinks, nothing else.

“It’s tradition that we come here after a case,” Hotch explains with a smile that, for the first time, seems to be genuinely carefree. He goes over to Gideon first and the two share a friendly handshake before Hotch allows Garcia to hug him.

“So the case ended well?” Gideon asks Hotch for confirmation.

“Considering.” Hotch goes to sit on the other side of Gideon at the rounded table. “We caught one of the men and, hopefully, he’ll roll on the other.”

“Don’t worry about it, Aaron, you did the best you could and it's out of your hands now.” Gideon states as he passes over a carton of food for Hotch to pour from.

I take a seat one chair away from Garcia who’s now returned to her spot.

“Oh no you don’t, Slick,” the woman teases me as she reaches over and nearly pulls me to the floor in effort to get me to stand.

“Wah, huh…” I stumble out and grab the seat beside her to keep from falling as my Chucks give out.

The other two men give discreet smiles.

“You’re sitting next to me.”

“I, uh…I thought, maybe, you’d want, you know, Morgan to sit there.”

Garcia laughs some. “Early bird catches the worm. Anyway a little competition is good for the man, keeps him on his sexy toes. Now eat, Skinny Minnie.” She insists, forcing one of the cartons into my hands.

I’m not sure how much competition I really am compared to a man like Derek Morgan, but I appreciate the suggestion I might be. I sniff, crinkle my nose, and then grab a nearby fork to pour food onto my plate.

“Speaking of Morgan, did you hear from him, Garcia?” Hotch asks as we all begin to switch off foods and eat.

“He said he’ll be here eventually, he just wanted to make sure skeevo didn’t slip through any cracks.”

Hotch nods some. “Good.”

“What about Emily?” I ask after swallowing down some Phad Thai.

Garcia shakes her head as she chews.

“I imagine Ms Prentiss will want to stay with her friend for as long as she can,” Gideon answers on behalf of our brightly colored secretary.

“Oh…right.”

Gideon smiles a little, then moves on. “How are you, by the way? Garcia said you were injured.”

Garcia blushes out her guilt under my displeased look.

“He’s fine, Jason.” This time it’s Hotch answering for me. “Just needs some aloe vera, right?”

I let up on Garcia, give up a small smile, and turn to Hotch and Gideon. “Uh…yeah. Mostly it’s just really itchy.”

Gideon nods. “An unfortunately irritating part of the healing process.”

I nod my agreement.

“Dr Reid actually got us some payment up front on the case too,” Hotch tells Gideon with a smile to me.

Gideon looks up from his plate curiously. “How’s that?”

Hotch raises his brows to see if I want to tell the story but I find myself almost embarrassed by the sudden accolade that I shake my head.

“We paid a visit to David Rossi and Dr Reid kept his men busy playing poker.” Hotch continues much to Gideon’s interest. Even Garcia is suddenly rapt with attention though she already knows the story as told by Morgan. “He cleaned out more than a couple of the men, he’s really quiet the card shark.”

“He’s good at chess too.” Gideon adds with a smile that, the best I can recall, is akin to that of a proud parent.

I feel my face heat. “Nah, you always beat me.”

“The trick is to think five moves ahead, not just one or two.” Gideon instructs patiently.

Hotch brings us back to the point. “He won enough money off Rossi’s men to cover Ms Prentiss’ payment and then some.”

“That's good.”

“I don’t think I’m even going to charge Ms Prentiss. The kidnapping had more to do with Rossi anyway.”

Gideon nods, seeming to find this a noble idea.

“I, uh…” Hotch breaks to take a drink his Scotch, “I was also thinking of hiring her, Prentiss, as part of the team.”

I watch Gideon’s brows arch a touch while he nibbles a chicken finger dipped in sauce. It’s then that I see, for once, Hotch isn’t so much making an announcement, but looking for feedback. …It seems we all are as we eat in silence that grows almost impatient for the elder man’s response.

Hotch’s former boss swallows, wipes his hands some, and begins to speak. “Do you think she can handle the things you do, Hotch?”

“She proved herself very useful and capable on this case.”

“And this one was personal.”

“Yes.” Hotch replies firmly.

Gideon’s hands open as he speaks once more. “Well I don’t see any harm in allowing her to join you all again if you think she’ll be helpful.”

It’s a surprisingly short conversation but, somehow, the issue is settled right then and there. Emily Prentiss will be part of the team as well.

“Oh my god, I almost forgot!” Garcia jumps suddenly and dives behind her chair for her bag. “I have something for you, Reid.”

“Dr Reid.” Gideon corrects on my behalf.

“Dr Reid,” Garcia self-corrects halfway into the large bag that matches her outfit. Then she pulls out a thick envelope. “This was dropped by the office while you guys were all off saving the day.”

"It's, uh, for me?"

"Sure is."

“From?”

Garcia pauses a moment, unsure if she should answer, before taking the leap. “Um, Mr. Rossi. He dropped it off himself.” She smiles a little, hoping that the fact it was done by the man himself will somehow win the mobster points or something

Hotch, Gideon, and I all freeze and go a little bug-eyed. Then Hotch and Gideon's eyes begin to narrow.

“He came to the office?” Hotch wants the clarification the most, speaking first.

The woman nods some. “He said that, um, he felt responsible, in some way, for Dr Reid’s attack and that this,” she hands the envelope over to me, “should cover you for new glasses and even contacts if, you know, you wanted them.”

I smile a little as I take the envelope and stuff it inside my inner jacket pocket. “Thanks Garcia.”

Garcia smiles awkwardly, unsure what to say or if she’d done something wrong in allowing the man into Hotch’s office and accepting the money in my stead.

As if the man timed it to break the slight freeze creeping over our little celebration Morgan bursts in all smiles and hellos. As he gives handshakes to Gideon and hugs and a kiss to the cheek to Garcia Morgan tells us he saw through Vogel’s arrest and that he’s sure it’ll stick.

“Man’s got no wiggle room,” he elaborates as he reaches between Garcia and myself for a crab rangoon. “Especially since, by the time we got to the station, there was already a few reporters laying in wait.” He turns and grins at Garcia. “So who’d you call, Pen?”

“Me? No one!” Garcia insists.

“Well ‘no one’ called the press.”

“Is that bad?” I ask not completely following.

Gideon shakes his head. “No, it’s good, but rare unless it’s one of us here or someone within the station.”

“So…maybe it’s someone in the station?”

Morgan heads behind the bar and goes to get himself beer from the tap. “If that’s the case then we have a friend there we don’t know about.” He bites his food before swallowing and smirking. “Whoever it is I’d love to shake his or her hand though cause they just sealed Vogel’s fate. Reporters got the whole story now so there’s no way anyone can cover it up.”

“Good.” Hotch states firmly.

“Awesome.” Morgan grins as he comes back over with his beer. He selects a seat close to Hotch and angled towards Garcia and me as he pops the rest of the rangoon in his mouth. “So,” he smirks some after he swallows, “anyone wanna tell me why my girl over there is handing over thick envelopes to the kid?”

Before Gideon has a chance to correct Morgan, before the room can grow awkward again, I have a reply.

“Services rendered.”

Both Hotch and Gideon start to choke on their drinks and food, Hotch’s face going crimson in the process. Garcia simply laughs and then gives everyone a suggestive, but clearly playful, look and wink.

“Oh you did not just say that!” Morgan declares with an appreciative laugh.

I shrug and give my best smug look.

“Appearances are often deceiving.” Gideon comments trying his best not to laugh his way through the quote.

“Aesop.” I announce the quote's source on instinct.

“Seeing is believing.” Morgan counters.

“Everyone.” It’s a common proverb.

There is another chorus of laughter, this one I join in on.

I’ve been a citizen of Quaint Cove 3 days, 16 hours, 43 minutes, and 32 seconds. I’ve found a job, become part of a team, gotten stabbed, made love to a beautiful woman, won over five-thousand dollars in poker, been shot at, and made a small group of friends that already feels like a family. This isn’t how I expected things to go, but I can’t imagine them going any other way than how they have. …3 days, 16 hours, 44 minutes, and 12 seconds…

***///***

 _"Turn the right corner in Sin City and you can find anything" ~ The Salesman, Sin City_


End file.
